Cooper Flagg & Team USA Scrimmage: 2024 Olympics Prep

Something happened yesterday during Team USA's third day of practicing, gearing up for the 2024 Paris Olympics that we have to talk about

Each time Team USA plays in an international tournament like the Olympics or the FIBA World Cup

Team USA will choose a USA Select team to practice with them for the first couple days of practice in Las Vegas

And so for this year's Team USA Select team, they selected Jalen Suggs, Jalen Duren, Keegan

Murray, Jaime Jaquez, Brandon Miller, Jabari Smith, Eamon Thompson, Peyton Pritchard, Trace

Jackson Davis, Brandon Podemski, Trey Murphy, and lastly, 17-year-old incoming Duke recruit

Cooper Flagg. Cooper is the number one recruit in the nation for the 2024 class

and like I said, he's only 17, does not turn 18 until December

He actually reclassified last August into this class and is going to Duke University in the fall

Being chosen to the select team is a huge honor for an NBA player

much less a college player like Cooper. He was the first collegiate athlete to be selected since Marcus Smart

and Don McDermott did in 2013. But there's a massive difference there

McDermott was a two-time All-American at Creighton at the point of his selection

and Marcus Smart was the Big 12 Player of the Year. Meanwhile, Cooper has not even enrolled at Duke yet

On the final day, day three of practicing with Team USA, the Select team would get to scrimmage them

And according to Mark Spears, one NBA coach said 17-year-old Cooper Flagg was the best player on the Select team

It's estimated that he had around 14 to 17 points in the scrimmage as a select team barely lost to this juggernaut Team USA 74 to 73

You can actually go watch the entire fourth quarter right here. And I highly encourage you to go do that

It looked like Team USA was running a first unit of Anthony Edwards Jason Tatum LeBron James Steph Curry and Joel Embiid Team USA would beat Team Select 74 to 73 But here is how the end of the game sequence went down Down one point with 22 seconds left Anthony Davis misses both free throws but then he redeems

himself locking up Brandon Pajemski. And just take a look at Cooper Flagg. He has Drew Holiday on him

for a majority of this scrimmage, hits this little turnaround over him, knocks down this pull-up three

over Anthony Davis and then within the same sequence has this super tough put back that

he gets an and one on guys I just cannot get over the fact this kid is 17 years old should be a

senior in high school this upcoming fall does not turn 18 for another five months and he's out there

versus the best players in this generation going toe-to-toe with them it's just absolutely

unbelievable. And one of the things that a lot of the players on Team USA said about Cooper

they were impressed with more than anything, was his poise. The moment didn't look too big for him

He fit in perfectly. He wasn't nervously committing turnovers or having any type of

apprehension on the court. He just went out there and played against some of the greatest players

in the entire world. And this is why everyone is so excited about the 2025 NBA draft. Cooper

is currently projected to go number one overall in what many experts believe to be an absolutely

loaded draft class. A couple other guys that make this draft class extremely special is Nolan Traore

out of France. He's 18, a point guard with a ton of upside. Some people think he could even be the

number one pick in this draft. You have incoming Rutgers freshman Ace Bailey and Dylan Harper as

well. Dylan Harper is the son of former NBA player Ron Harper and then Baylor freshman VJ Edgecombe

Honestly, this may be another year where teams tank for Cooper Flagg and they're happy if they

end up with one of these other guys too. But in the meantime, Cooper Flagg is going to be must-see

television at Duke this year. He stands at 6'9", is 205 pounds. Look for him to put on quite a bit

of muscle in his freshman season. I wanna take a moment in this video

and do something different. My friend Joe from Strictly B is going to give us his take on Cooper as he been traveling around the past year watching Cooper Maine United AAU team on the circuit capturing plenty of viral moments

in the process. Let's hear what Joe has to say about Cooper. I've watched Cooper Flag play 20

plus basketball games, but I'll never forget the first time I watched him play. I heard about this

kid from Maine who was taking over, who was incredibly talented. So I went to one of his 15

new games in a back gym in an Indiana high school, and I could not have predicted what I saw next

First five minutes of the game, this dude was hitting threes, mid-range shots, finishing for

and ones. I think he scored like the first 16 points, but the offense was not even nearly as

impressive as his defense. He was blocking shot after shot, guarding guys on the perimeter. He has

such a unique combination of athleticism, IQ, and reaction time to make him one of the best defensive

high school players ever. The best I've ever seen. And now to see what he's doing at the Team USA

camp as a 17 year old getting raving reviews from NBA coaches from NBA legends this kid is truly one

of the best prospects we have seen entering college in the last decade Langston Galloway who's a

former NBA player and a practice player for the national team had this to say about Cooper I'm not

even impressed about the scoring and all that I'm more impressed about his poise he's not out there

trying to force it like it's my turn let me try to get a shot up he's just trying to make plays you

can see he understands the game get in the paint everybody collapses making the right reads so

that's the most impressive part of it for a 17 year old to be able to understand the game cooper

was born and raised in newport maine playing for nokomis high school as a freshman leading them to

the state championship before then transferring to monteverde in florida where he would help lead

them to a perfect 33 and a record and a national championship this past season. Something I thought

was super interesting is that a Maine native has not been drafted in 40 years not since the New Jersey Nets selected Jeff Turner in 1984 That will absolutely change next summer But in the meantime let enjoy watching this kid absolutely tear it up on the college level next season

And with that being said, guys, the Olympics are quickly approaching. For basketball, the first games take place in just 18 days on Saturday, July 27th

Here is a look at the three different groups of four. In group A, you have Australia, Greece, which has Giannis, obviously

Team Canada, a team that I think is a dark horse to win gold

Speaking of Team Canada, they will play Team USA tomorrow in an exhibition

On Team Canada, you have guys like Shea Gilgis-Alexander, Jamal Murray, Dylan Brooks, Lou Dort, RJ Barrett, Nikhil Alexander-Walker, and Andrew Nembhard

And lastly, in that group, you have Spain. In Group B, you have France, Germany, Japan, and Brazil

Team France is actually the team I genuinely think is going to win gold

And of course, it's a contrarian take. The United States should be the favorites

However, Team France has Victor Webinyama and Rudy Gobert, not to mention Bilal Koulibaly

And if you've seen some of these exhibition matches that Team France has had recently

with Wemby and Rudy playing the pick and roll together, it's pretty terrifying

Of course, Germany is the team that won gold in the FIBA World Cup last year and knocked the United States out of the gold medal match

And then lastly, the United States group in Group C, which has Puerto Rico and Jose Alvarado, South Sudan, Nikoli Jokic in Serbia

Be on the lookout for a video soon breaking down Team France, how terrifying they truly are

Also a video on Team Canada versus Team USA's exhibition match tomorrow

First impressions from the NBA Summer League in Las Vegas this weekend

And of course, a video at some point on one of the most hyped team USA Olympic rosters in recent memory

This is a fun offseason. Normally, we don't get exciting times in July and August during the regular NBA calendar year

But this year is different with the Olympics. So let's enjoy this. My video on the worst GM tenure in NBA history is coming out very soon

If it's out, you can click on it here. And if not, subscribe, hit those notification bells, and we'll see you on the hardwood