Kevin Love says he has a new phrase that he wants to live by: “Plant trees and watch ’em grow.” Consider Cooper Flagg one of Love’s next trees that might not need too much help growing. Love and Flagg are in the middle of a quick, but deserved, media tour. Flagg was named the Gatorade Best Male Player of the Year award at the 2024 ESPYs on Thursday, a feat Love accomplished back in 2007. It’s just the start for Flagg, the coveted Duke signee, whose brand is only blowing up even more after a jaw-dropping showing against a LeBron James, Stephen Curry-led Team USA club that is the favorite to take gold at the Paris 2024 Olympic Games.
“Oh, he will translate,” Love told CBS Sports. “Just playing against future Hall of Famers, some of the guys who are some of the greatest players of all time and the most decorated players of this generation and certainly the best. He’s very poised for his age. Speaking of his demeanor, he studies the game. You can tell he has great people around him, great teammates that he cares for and that helps you and translates in any situation. That’s the beauty of this award and it’s not just a basketball award. It’s in the community, it’s something that’s only going to help him in Duke and beyond.”
The 17-year, NBA veteran and the projected No. 1 pick in the 2025 NBA Draft grew up on opposite coasts, but they’ve bonded over their love and appreciation for one of the NBA’s all-time teams: the 1985-86 Boston Celtics. Love will go down as one of the best outlet passers in the history of the game, but he emulated the late, great Bill Walton who won Sixth Man of the Year for Boston. Flagg is a born-and-bred Celtics fan. Growing up in Newport, Maine, he didn’t have much of a choice.
“We’d have a couple-hour drive for AAU tournaments and our little Chrysler van had a movie projector that would come down the middle and we’d pop in 85-86 Celtics the whole championship run and watch game by game, playing the whole thing over and over again,” Flagg told CBS Sports. “I think the way they played, the way they got the ball out quickly, moved it down the court, the selflessness and unselfishness on that team of just accepting a role, doing the right things, putting your body on the line, it kind of embodies what a good team has to have. Everyone has to sacrifice something. Playing the game the right way will get you a lot farther than trying to do things you can’t or don’t help your team win. That type of influence has been invaluable to me.”
Flagg could only lean back and pop a smile as Love described watching Boston’s outlet drill which kickstarted an elite transition offense. Of course, the Celtics could play defense too with a massive back-line featuring some combination of Robert Parrish, Kevin McHale, Larry Bird and Walton.
Flagg hopes to recreate that style of basketball at Duke this winter. Jon Scheyer has a team fresh out of the incubator. Duke’s starting backcourt of Tyrese Proctor and Caleb Foster are the lone returners. Flagg is the big name, but Duke has a whopping 10 newcomers. On paper, Duke has a chance to be one of the best defensive teams in the country. But getting that many fresh faces to gel defensively isn’t easy.
Still, the defensive upside for this group is off the charts. Freshman center Khaman Maluach is enormous, checking in at 7-foot-2 and 250 pounds. Duke added Syracuse transfer Maliq Brown, one of the ACC’s best defenders last season. Proctor is a hellacious on-ball defender, and ripply Tulane transfer Sion James is a menace on that end, too.
Duke could trot out a starting lineup with Foster, a ho-hum, 6-foot-5, 200-pound guard, being the smallest player on the floor.
Flagg is at the epicenter of all of it. He’s regarded as one of the best defensive prospects high school basketball has ever seen. He’s 6-foot-9, 200 pounds and the queen on the chess board with his ability to guard up and down the lineup and offer elite secondary rim protection.
Maybe most importantly, being special defensive is of utmost importance to Flagg. He lights up describing just what Duke could be on that end of the floor.
“We have so many versatile guys defensively,” Flagg says. “We have such a tall lineup. That doesn’t mean we’re not quick also. We have big guards who can sit down and guard small guards. We’re going to be so versatile in the way we defend. We’ll be able to pick our spots and pick our coverage on the way we guard. I think we can be very tactical with the way we guard this year. I’m so excited to get this going.”
The game has changed and Flagg’s ability to guard everybody defensively and pass, dribble and shoot exemplifies it.
“For us, it was power forwards, small forwards and point guards,” Love said. “Now, guys are just like switching 1-through-5 and do everything and play every position. People like to say the word ‘unicorn’ but you’re seeing that. The game is positionless, and we didn’t have that in the past. I think that’s a beautiful thing. It speaks to the skill work. You’re never too good to not have to work on your skills and work on literally everything.
“Looking back at grassroots basketball and AAU, in hindsight, whether it’s coaches or the entire ecosystem, I wish we would’ve focused a lot more on skill work. You watch the European influence and how much better the European game has gotten, they don’t give a shit about rankings. They care about getting better. They care about skill work. They play two games a week. We were playing three games on Thursday, three games on Friday, four games on Saturday and sometimes five games on Sunday. That’s too much. I’m not going to say I felt like I left some things on the table in my career, but hindsight you think is 20/20. I wish the skill work and being hungrier to have more games would’ve been paramount. It’s like going to a good vacation. You leave wanting more. I wish that was what we had.”
Flagg and Love have already gone their separate ways. Love is heading back to Miami to be Bam Adebayo’s backup big man which he describes as “the best job in the world.”
For Flagg, he’s itching for a bit of normalcy after the pomp and circumstance of the ESPYs in Los Angeles, competing against the best of the best in Las Vegas and, of course, his summer responsibilities at Duke. That’s a lot of flights.
But he’s got one more that he’s cherishing on tap.
Next month, Flagg will return home to host a basketball camp at the University of Maine (a place his old Nokomis High School coach Earl Anderson wanted him to go to for a year). Flagg and his brother, Ace, will lead the camp for boys and girls from first grade to sixth grade. The first session sold out so quickly and there was such a big interest that they had to create a second session. That off-court work is a big piece of why Gatorade selected Flagg as its Player of the Year.
“It means everything to me,” Flagg says. “Coming from a small town, knowing everybody. Having a very tight circle. We call it our village back home. Just having that support system from a young age. Being tight-knit, close to all my people has helped my people through this process so much, so I’m really excited to go home and do something for the younger generation and pay it back. I’m excited for the opportunity to be home for a little bit.”
It’ll be a well-deserved, short break. Maybe Flagg can sneak his way onto the golf course again with his mentor and former AAU coach, Andy Bedard. But the spotlight isn’t leaving Flagg anytime soon. Duke’s season will be here before he knows it. The 2025 NBA Draft is less than a year away. Flagg’s hopeful he won’t have to wait long to hear his name called, and Love will be waiting in the NBA when he gets there.
“(Kevin Durant), Steph, LeBron are phasing out of their careers in the next few years and the game is in such a good place,” Love said. “Watching how much it changed since 2007 when I was going to UCLA, it’s getting so much better. The talent level domestically and abroad has taken such a leap forward. That’s why the TV deal was $76 billion. Those are absurd numbers. You’re excited for young men like Cooper and Cameron (Boozer) who continue to evolve and take it to the next level.”
But is Love the best outlet passer in the game? Or does that title belong to Walton from Flagg’s beloved Celtics?
Flagg says it’s Love, but the vet wouldn’t let it slide.
“Oh, Walton,” Love says with a laugh. “That’s not fair.”
READ MORE: Finding Flagg, untold stories of Cooper Flagg’s generational rise
