Cooper Hype Hits A New High
Some you can ignore but some you have to go....wow...really? This is one of those.
We’re really wary of recruits being hyped up. It’s natural of course. Young guys come along and they’re good and it’s really easy to get caught up in it. The strangest example we’ve ever heard was when Kenny Anderson was in high school and a college coach confessed that he got, uh, aroused watching him. Whatever, dude, but it illustrated the point: people get wound up watching new talent.
So accordingly we’ve been wary of hyping Cooper Flagg too much. If he’s as good as people think, then he’ll be a lot of fun to watch. But you have to remember all the guys who came before him, who got wildly overhyped and not just at Duke. Here’s a few examples:
- Joey Beard
- Chris Burgess
- Seventh Woods
- Emoni Bates
- Patrick Baldwin
- Schea Cotton
- Renardo Sidney
- Fab Melo
- Milton Jennings
The list could go on for hours and the debates much longer but you get the point.
So we do like to hold off and not add to the hype. But in the case of Cooper Flagg, people - and by people we mean professional people who know what they’re talking about - seem to be really sure they are seeing something special.
In the most recent case, a GM who is anonymous due to league rules against talking about prospects, says Flagg could “start for our team tonight.”
That’s an astounding thing to say about a 17-year-old who has not played a single minute of college basketball. It would have been believable about LeBron James but anyone else? Can it be true about Flagg?
We’ll know soon.
Speaking of Flagg, when the season starts the hype train is going to run straight into the hate train and he needs to be aware of what that means for a gifted player at Duke not named Zion Williamson. And who better to let him know than JJ Redick?
The amount of vitriol targeted at Redick almost led him to quit, particularly when it was aimed at his young sisters. Fortunately he preserved and now he’s told Flagg what to expect which is going to be deeply useful for Duke’s star freshman.
Not that it matters, but it would make sense if the GM in question was Trajan Langdon. Newly installed with the Detroit Pistons, a team that has really struggled lately, Flagg would have a decent chance of starting even at 17.