In August 2021, Bangor Daily News sports reporter Ernie Clark took a trip to Nokomis Regional High School in Newport to interview an incoming freshman named Cooper Flagg.
Despite being just 14 years old at the time, Flagg was 6-foot-7, could dunk with ease and had recently received his first of many Division I college offers to come, from Bryant University in Rhode Island.
“I was just in awe, pretty much,” the teenager told Clark, a veteran sports journalist of 35 years and New England Basketball Hall of Famer.
Coming off a Zero Gravity National Finals eighth-grade championship with 6-foot-6 twin brother Ace Flagg and their Maine United AAU teammates, Cooper was already putting himself on the map.
Flash forward to July 2024, and Cooper is an incoming freshman at Duke University, coming off a national title run with Montverde Academy in Florida and is being hailed as the top college prospect of his generation.
Having seen the Newport native as a skinny freshman leading Nokomis to its first ever gold ball and as a 6-foot-9 McDonald’s All-American going toe-to-toe with future NBA Hall of Famers, Clark maintains that Flagg’s method for success — playing selflessly and intelligently with winning on his mind — hasn’t changed much since he first met him.
“He’s gotten much better in every way, yet he continues to be the same player he’s always been,” Clark said. “There’s no way you could have anticipated all of this, but nothing surprises you.”
Unlike your prototypical basketball star, Flagg isn’t a ball hog and doesn’t dominate the stat sheet offensively. With Montverde Academy this year, he accounted for less than 20 percent of the team’s points (16.5 ppg), and in 2022-23, he scored 9.8 ppg.
Even as Maine Gatorade Boys Basketball Player of the Year in 2021-22, Flagg averaged “just” 20.5 ppg — this year’s top scorers like Carter Galley of Oceanside and Zach McLaughlin of Hampden Academy hovered around 25 ppg.
Instead, Flagg has always used his athleticism and innate basketball instincts to play hard on defense, involve his teammates and do the little things right.
At home with Nokomis, Flagg averaged 10.0 rebounds, 6.7 assists, 3.7 blocks and 3.7 steals per game. Against the nation’s top talent with Montverde, he averaged 5.8 rebounds, 3.4 assists, 2.5 blocks and 1.6 steals.
His teams have compiled a 77-4 record in his three-year high school career.
“His freshman year, he had all the skills of a center and a point guard, and the willingness to sacrifice [stats] for the good of the team,” Clark said. “He has the competitive nature and determination of Cindy Blodgett, and of Larry Bird.”
“He does just enough scoring to help his team win,” Clark added.
Earl Anderson, Flagg’s former coach at Nokomis Regional High School and current assistant coach at Hampden Academy, says his players are always shocked to hear Flagg’s high school scoring averages.
“He’s all about winning. He makes the right play at the right time, and gets his team into a rhythm,” Anderson said. “His style of play hasn’t changed, he’s just more physically mature.”
Similar to Clark and the rest of the state Anderson had a front row seat to see Flagg’s exploits at the Maine Event in Portland this past January.
Two years after transferring to Montverde, the Flagg twins triumphantly returned home, as Cooper exploded for 26 points (64.7 percent shooting), 9.5 rebounds, 3.5 assists and 5.5 blocks per game in the two-day showcase, against top private school teams from the Northeast.
“I knew Cooper was going to be an NBA player two years ago. I knew he was going to be the future No. 1 pick by this winter,” Anderson said. “He sees the game in slow motion. It was nothing I hadn’t seen from him already.”
Like Clark, Anderson also compared Cooper to Bird, explaining that the Flagg brothers loved watching tapes of the 80’s Celtics growing up.
“He has an uncanny ability to contribute in every aspect of the game,” Anderson said. “Larry Bird and Magic Johnson come to mind.”
