Are the Nets the best spot for Duke’s Cooper Flagg?

The Brooklyn Nets are heading into the 2025 NBA Draft Lottery on Monday with the hopes of getting lucky enough to be able to select Duke forward Cooper Flagg. For Brooklyn to be able to do that, they will need to end up with the first overall pick in the Draft. Aside from the obvious of whether the Nets should take Flagg, it’s time to see if Brooklyn would be the best spot for him.

Flagg enters the 2025 NBA Draft as one of the most-hyped prospects in recent memory because of what he was able to do in high school and in college at Durham. There was some reporting that Flagg could play another year at Duke because of how the team’s season ended in the Final Four, but now that Flagg is entering the Draft, the next level will be the most interesting aspect to ponder.

When evaluating what would be the best spot for Flagg, it depends on what the context for “best’ is, but for the purposes of this article, best will mean the place that Flagg can develop without little to anything in his way to doing so. For the Nets, they enter the offseason with the most cap space in the league and could also surround Flagg with Cam Johnson, Nic Claxton, and Cam Thomas, just to name a few players that Flagg could share the floor with.

Granted, whichever team in the Lottery that Flagg could go to would be able to give him the space and opportunity to grow into who he is going to be in the NBA. However, a team like Brooklyn is hoping to rebuild in a short amount of time and a player like Flagg could jumpstart the rebuild, especially if the Nets hold onto players like Johnson, Claxton, and Thomas to give Flagg something to work with for teammates.

Ultimately, there are a number of teams that Flagg could go to and any one of them will do what it takes the maximize the investment that they made in him. Be that as it may, it would be interesting to see what Flagg would look like in one of the biggest markets in the league, especially one that could attract someone like Milwaukee Bucks superstar Giannis Antetokounmpo if certain events were to occur.