“He’s not Zion”: Associate head coach Jai Lucas compares Cooper Flagg with ex-Duke superstar
Duke freshman forward Cooper Flagg has captivated basketball fans with his elite skills at such a young age. The 17-year-old has even drawn comparisons to former Blue Devils star and NBA player Zion Willamson.
With just a couple of weeks remaining before the start of the new season, the hype around the young phenom continues to grow. Flagg was named to the AP All-American preseason team this week.
Duke's associate head coach, Jai Lucas, who has observed Cooper Flagg extensively in the training, addressed the comparison between him and Zion.
"It's a rare few players where you just kind of let them be," Lucas said via CBS Sports. "He just has an ability to just, you put him on the floor, he's gonna make something happen. But the one thing to remember is he's still 17, so it's still a lot of stuff that's going to come with 17, he is going to struggle this year.
"It's not going to be a perfect year. He's going to be really good, but he also is going to have some struggles just because of age … and he's not Zion, where he's just physically imposing."
Another Blue Devils assistant coach, Chris Carrawell, also weighed in on the discussion and praised them both.
"They kind of have something, a lot of the same intangibles, great teammate, they connect with everybody — that's really hard to do," Carrawell said. "This dude comes in, he's been coachable. Zion was coachable. They come in with this, I wouldn't say aura, but they did."
Zion Williamson, a 6-foot-6 power forward, played a season at Duke before being picked first overall in the 2019 draft by the New Orleans Pelicans. He averaged 22.6 points and 8.9 rebounds for the Blue Devils, winning ACC Player of the Year.
Is Cooper Flagg the most hyped freshman coming into college?
Many believe Cooper Flagg is the highly anticipated college basketball prospect of the last decade.
Only a handful of players like Kentucky's Anthony Davis and Kansas' Andrew Wiggins observed the same level of hype coming into freshman seasons. Both Davis and Wiggins lived up to the immense expectations and went on to be top picks in the NBA draft.
Cooper Flagg is undoubtedly a generational talent and is already a projected No. 1 pick in next year's draft. He also had a decent game against several NBA players, including LeBron James, Steph Curry and Kevin Durant, in an Olympic scrimmage matchup in July.