When Cooper Flagg’s name is called at the NBA draft on Wednesday, no one will be cheering louder than the people in his hometown of Newport, Maine.
Flagg is all but certain to be the number one overall pick taken by the Dallas Mavericks. And Newport is enjoying this once-in-a-lifetime ride along with its hometown hero.
“Everybody’s talking about it,” Dave Albert said Monday morning at Bear’s One Stop, a Newport convenience and grocery store.
“It’s big-time,” Albert added.
It’s also unprecedented, both for Newport and Maine. The state has produced a handful of NBA draft picks, but never a player who was taken first overall. At just 18 years old, the 6-foot-9-inch Flagg has risen to a height never before seen in Maine basketball. Wednesday’s draft will be a landmark moment in that improbable ascendance.
“I just think it’s amazing. I don’t even think people realize how amazing it is,” said Bear’s One Stop owner Robert Berg, who contends that Flagg is already the greatest athlete in Maine’s history. “I find it mesmerizing.”
Flagg has been mesmerizing people for a long time. He was already impressing coaches by the time he was in second grade (playing with third and fourth graders), and seemed like a celebrity when walking the halls of Nokomis Regional High School and Middle School in Newport where he helped deliver a state championship his freshman year.
Kylee Carter will be a senior at Nokomis next year, and she can still remember seeing Flagg when she was in middle school.
“I distinctly remember him walking by, because he was so much taller than everybody else,” Carter said Monday while working at the Sebasticook Valley Federal Credit Union. “And it was really cool to witness that. It was like a celebrity was walking through our halls.”
Cooper Flagg and his twin brother, Ace, both went on to play at national basketball powerhouse Montverde Academy in Florida after that one championship season at Nokomis, and then Cooper continued his meteoric rise with a dominant season at Duke University where he nabbed nearly every national college player of the year award. His hometown has been rooting for him each stop along the way, and that will surely continue Wednesday night as he finds out his NBA landing spot.
“He has a lot of support, coming from a small town in Maine,” Carter said. “It’s unheard of for something like that to happen, especially around here. So it’s really inspiring as well, it’s very cool.”
Jessica Blanchard said she wasn’t quite sure what locals would do with all the Duke gear they amassed during Flagg’s time with the Blue Devils. But she was sure that she’ll be wearing merch for whichever team adds Flagg to its NBA roster (which will almost surely be Dallas).
“People are just going to continue to follow him throughout his career,” Blanchard said. “He’s definitely a hometown boy.”
And that hometown will be one big party on Wednesday night.
Newport may end up being the watch party capital of America Wednesday night, with a slew of events planned across town, including ones planned at Hamlin’s Marina, wedding venue the Grove and Somerset Pourhouse — along with an invite-only private watch party at the high school geared primarily toward Nokomis students.
“There’s a lot of good vibes,” said Newport resident Douglas Henderson. “Everybody’s happy. Local kid, you know. Number one in the draft, that’s crazy, right?”
Henderson is a Celtics fan, but hopes to see Flagg get selected first overall by the Mavericks.
“To go number one is very big for us,” Henderson said. “Never really had anything like that.”
At every step in his basketball journey, Flagg has shown Maine fans something they’ve never seen before. From his early dominance and national attention at Nokomis, to a national title with Montverde, to a magical Final Four run at Duke, Flagg has almost made the unimaginable feel commonplace with the way he has continually broken the mold for a Maine basketball player.
But while Newport is used to Cooper Flagg doing amazing things, Somerset Pour House manager Zach Leal thinks this moment will really put the gravity of the situation into perspective for folks.
“Once we hear his name called, we have a pro athlete from here that was drafted number one in the NBA,” Leal said. “I can’t wait to see what the town does, but it’s going to be something special.”
It has already been a special time in Newport thanks to Flagg, as a kid from down the street has climbed to the top of the basketball world.
“He grew up two blocks away from me, that’s how close it is to me,” Albert said Monday morning.
Albert has never met Flagg, but is impressed with his demeanor.
“But yeah, he’s down to earth, he’s a Mainer,” Albert said.