It’s been quite a week for Cooper Flagg. On Monday, he put the entire basketball world on notice during a Team USA scrimmage in Las Vegas. On Thursday night, the incoming Duke freshman was in Los Angeles walking the red carpet at the ESPYS and took home the Gatorade Best Male Player of the Year award, one of the most prestigious honors given to high school athletes. The 12 Gatorade National Player of the Year finalists lined the stage at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood as Flagg accepted the award alongside track star Sadie Engelhardt, who won Best Female Player of the Year honors.
“It’s a huge accomplishment and great honor to be here and a great opportunity to interact with elite players from different sports,” Flagg told Yahoo Sports. “It means a lot. It’s just a really big thing for me, knowing how much has gone into it.”
Past winners of the Best Player of the Year award include LeBron James, Jayson Tatum, Candace Parker, Sydney McLaughlin-Levrone, Paige Bueckers and Karl-Anthony Towns.
Flagg also won the national player of the year award for boys basketball in March, joining a select group of previous winners, including Kobe Bryant, Dwight Howard, James, Tatum and Kevin Love, among others.
Love, who has been involved with Gatorade since he won the award in 2007, had a chance to mentor Flagg this week and came away impressed with his game and potential at the NBA level.
“There’s a number of players’ games that I see inside Cooper’s game,” Love told Yahoo Sports. “He belongs. You can tell he knows the game well. Just watching a bit of film on him, he does a little bit of everything well. He takes advantage of smaller players, follows for putbacks, takes advantage of a guy backing off of him and shoots the 3, regardless of size. He uses his height and length to switch one through five, and the combination of size, length and athleticism is impressive.”
Flagg was the No. 1-ranked player coming out of high school and chose Duke over UConn and Kansas. This past high school season, Flagg led Montverde Academy (Florida) to a 33-0 record and the high school national title. He also competed in the McDonalds All American Game and the Nike Hoop Summit and is the early favorite to go No. 1 in the 2025 NBA Draft.