As Cooper Flagg continues to do what no Mainer has ever done before at the NBA level, his longtime player development coach is also helping to train some of the brightest young stars in Maine high school basketball.
When he’s not traveling around the country with Flagg and the Dallas Mavericks, Matt MacKenzie is working with some of the Pine Tree State’s best players as they grow their own games. And his wide influence was felt from Bangor to Portland during the recently-concluded high school basketball tournament.
Several of the tournament’s top performers have ties to MacKenzie and his Veazie-based businesses Eastern Maine Sports Academy and Results Basketball.
For example, Addison Cyr, the dominant senior from Mattanawcook Academy in Lincoln who piled up 25 points and 23 rebounds en route to a Class C state title, trains with MacKenzie. And the connections might be the most pronounced at the freshman level, where first-year players have stormed on the scene with help from MacKenzie and his team.
Madawaska’s Quinn Pelletier, Cony of Augusta’s Carter Brathwaite, Cheverus of Portland’s Khaelon Watkins and Maranacook of Reidfield’s Gage Mattson have all played together for MacKenzie on the AAU circuit, and each helped their team make a deep tournament run this year. And on the girls side from Rockland, Oceanside’s Olivia Breen also spends time in his gym, MacKenzie said.
“We’ve been working really hard for over a decade to provide a model for player development that is impactful for players of every level,” MacKenzie said after watching Pelletier and his Madawaska teammates get a win during the Class D North regional tournament. “And I think that our results speak for themselves in terms of the successes that our players that have come through our program have seen. And I think that obviously Cooper being at the pinnacle of that — there’s been a trickle down effect.”
When you spend years working to help develop Maine’s first-ever top NBA draft pick, people take notice.
Shawn Pelletier, Quinn’s father and head coach of the Madawaska Owls team, said it’s easy to trust that MacKenzie and his staff can help his son get to where he wants to be. After all, they’ve already helped someone grow into the number one pick.
“You know that they obviously know what they’re doing,” Shawn Pelletier said.
And the Pelletiers have found inspiration in the Flagg family’s mentality of always looking to improve.
“I think Cooper’s mom had said, if you’re the best person in the gym, you’ve got to find a new gym,” Shawn Pelletier added.
For two straight North regional tournaments, Quinn Pelletier has clearly been among the best in the Bangor gym, even though he was only an eighth grader last season.
“I think that one thing that really stands out about Quinn is that he plays the right way and he’s a willing passer,” MacKenzie said. “And because of that, it just makes him so dangerous because he usually finds the open man, whether it’s a cutter to the basket or an open shooter in the corner.”
That ability to make the right play at the right time has become a hallmark for MacKenzie’s most famous protege, Flagg, as well as some of those younger rising stars.
“The one common thing is that they all play for the team. And they’re very unselfish players, they’re high IQ,” MacKenzie said about the freshmen who played AAU with him. “They don’t need to score to be impactful.”
He highlighted Brathwaite’s performance late in a tourney win over Ellsworth as just one example.
“For the first three quarters, I felt like he kind of just did whatever he needed to do to facilitate, to distribute, to kind of keep his team in the game,” MacKenzie said about the freshman. “And then the last few minutes he went on a little bit of a burst where you saw him score some really pivotal buckets. And make some really key passes to win that game for Cony.”
Isaiah Brathwaite, the Cony head coach, is Carter Brathwaite’s father. He said it’s very helpful to have another knowledgeable basketball voice in his son’s ear.
“Matt’s a great guy,” Isaiah Brathwaite said about MacKenzie. “Matt’s been part of Carter’s journey for a very long time throughout the AAU world. And it’s just been awesome having Matt there.”
And the young players don’t just have MacKenzie’s help. They also have Flagg’s example. Just a few years ago, the Mavericks forward was dominating the Maine high school basketball tournament as a freshman. Now he’s setting rookie records in the NBA.
“Cooper continues to be a great role model for them in terms of how he plays the game and how important it is to continue to stay hungry, continue to work on your game, and challenge yourself every day,” MacKenzie said. “And so I know that this entire freshman class of guys, speaking for the guys that come into our gym and work with our club, they all look up to Cooper.”
MacKenzie said Flagg makes himself available to lend mentorship and guidance, and wants to keep up with the young players’ development. He was asking MacKenzie about them on a recent flight from Los Angeles to Durham, North Carolina, where Flagg played one year of college basketball at Duke University.
“He wanted to know how their seasons were going, if their teams were in the tournament,” MacKenzie said about Flagg’s curiosity. “And so he stays invested in their successes, which I think is really neat. So it goes both ways. These freshmen aren’t just looking up to Cooper, but he’s also staying tied into what’s happening in Maine basketball.”
There may never be another Cooper Flagg-level success story to come out of Maine. As MacKenzie has said in the past, Flagg is one of one in terms of his talent and competitive drive. But as other young players from Maine look to chart their own course to success, it would be hard to find a better source of inspiration.
“Obviously Cooper sets that foundation, it’s that groundwork,” MacKenzie said. “But everybody’s going to kind of go on their own journey.”
MacKenzie said that young players willing to put in the necessary hard work have found their way to his gym in pursuit of their own goals.
“I don’t like taking credit for all of these kids and their successes,” MacKenzie continued. “However, it’s been enjoyable for me and my team to be a part — even if it’s a small part — of some of their successes. And we look forward to continuing to help them develop and be a resource, be a roadmap, be a GPS to kind of help them along their journeys.”
