Cooper Flagg captured the attention of the basketball world this week at the Team USA minicamp in Las Vegas when as part of the developmental Select Team, he dominated against the NBA stars on the main squad in a close-fought scrimmage.
As Flagg heads to Duke this fall and a likely selection atop the 2025 NBA Draft, ESPN’s Tony Kornheiser is weary of the narrative that is already building around the young hoops phenom.
Tuesday on Pardon the Interruption, Kornheiser compared the impending media firestorm around Flagg to the mess that sports fans and commentators made following Caitlin Clark from Iowa to the WNBA this spring.
“Let’s get to the real facts of this. Because he is going to Duke and because he is a white player, assumptions are going to be made, statements are going to be thrown around,” Kornheiser said. “That is the nature of what are dealing with, as it is with Caitlin Clark. I hope he is a great player, but the pressure on him is going to be enormous.”
“Because he is going to Duke and because he’s a White player … the pressure on him will be enormous … will he be allowed to just be a basketball player?”
Kornheiser and Wilbon compare Cooper Flagg to Caitlin Clark and question the narrative around 2025’s top NBA prospect: pic.twitter.com/KFdCQ3Tf7v
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) July 10, 2024
Flagg has a December 2005 birthday, which allowed him to reclassify and join Duke this season. As a white American basketball star from Maine playing in Durham, Flagg is a rarity in recent basketball history. A white player has not been selected first overall in the NBA Draft since 1977. And since Larry Bird and John Stockton faded in the 1990s as international basketball grew, white American superstars have been relatively rare.
With Clark in the WNBA this season, one clear narrative has been that the Indiana Fever star is experiencing the unique idea of being a minority in her sport as a white athlete. Kornheiser sees the extraordinary toxicity and pressure around Clark and hopes Flagg can avoid it.
“Will he be allowed to just be a basketball player, or will all the cultural notions overwhelm him?” Kornheiser wondered.
Michael Wilbon explained that fans and media may actually be more comfortable with the conversation in men’s basketball since it has been discussed so much already.
“People don’t really want to get into it with Caitlin Clark. This is newer in women’s sports,” Wilbon said. “But there won’t be that same reluctance and reticence when it comes to Cooper Flagg and Duke.”
Remember, Clark’s arrival in the WNBA ruffled feathers among players and fans. So far within Team USA, players and coaches have been glowing in their praise of Flagg. Because Flagg is so new on the scene and hasn’t had a chance to make himself known yet, it’s hard to get a read on the identity-related aspects of what he will mean as a star athlete.
However, the PTI duo is almost assuredly correct that Flagg’s race and the history around it will be talking points for the foreseeable future in his basketball career.
[Pardon the Interruption on ESPN]
