{"id":643290,"date":"2026-03-06T14:18:26","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T14:18:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/643290\/"},"modified":"2026-03-06T14:18:26","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T14:18:26","slug":"cooper-flagg-embraces-central-florida-homecoming-vs-magic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/643290\/","title":{"rendered":"Cooper Flagg embraces Central Florida homecoming vs. Magic"},"content":{"rendered":"

Almost two years ago, Magic<\/a> forward Paolo Banchero<\/a> surprised then-Montverde Academy<\/a> senior Cooper Flagg<\/a> with the Gatorade national player of year award after practice on the high school campus located roughly 30 minutes from downtown Orlando.<\/p>\n

Fast forward to Thursday night at Kia Center<\/a> and the two players \u2014 who share the fact that they\u2019re both No. 1 picks who spent one season at Duke \u2014 faced off against each other for the first time in the NBA<\/a> when Flagg and the Mavericks<\/a> made their lone trip of the regular season to Central Florida.<\/p>\n

Despite Flagg\u2019s best efforts, which included converting an and-one opportunity that put Dallas<\/a> in front of Orlando<\/a> by four points with 37.3 seconds remaining in the game, Banchero got the last laugh in a 115-114 Magic victory thanks to a Wendell Carter Jr. dunk with 1.4 seconds left.<\/p>\n

Flagg, who returned to the court after missing eight games because of a left midfoot sprain, notched 18 points, five rebounds, six assists, a steal and and four blocks during 26 minutes in the one-point loss.<\/p>\n

Banchero finished with 16 points, 12 rebounds, six assists and two steals, but turned the ball over six times in 36 minutes.<\/p>\n

Although Flagg, a native of Maine, couldn\u2019t get the outcome he wanted, he still understood the significance of returning to Orlando, not far from where he capped off a prolific high school career at Montverde.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was great to be back,\u201d the 19-year-old said. \u201cIt\u2019s a great area. (There were) a lot of fans (and) I saw a lot of my jerseys in the crowd, so it was pretty cool just to kind of be back here and have that vibe.\u201d<\/p>\n

With a layup in the first quarter, Flagg became the second-youngest player in NBA history to reach 1,000 points.<\/p>\n

Just the 10th player under 20 years old to cross the scoring milestone, he was only 33 days older compared to when LeBron James accomplished the feat as a rookie in 2004.<\/p>\n

\"Dallas<\/p>\n

Stephen M. Dowell\/Orlando Sentinel<\/p>\n

Mavericks rookie Cooper Flagg falls as he shoots among Magic defenders during Thursday’s game at Kia Center. (Stephen M. Dowell\/Orlando Sentinel)<\/p>\n

\u201cI love Cooper\u2019s game, man,\u201d Banchero said in the locker room. \u201cI just love his aggression. Even when he\u2019s not particularly shooting the ball well, he does so many other things out there.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s just a hell of a player,\u201d Banchero added. \u201cSo, it was dope to play against him and look forward to matching up with him in the future.\u201d<\/p>\n

They\u2019ll face each other again this season April 3 when the Magic travel to Dallas.<\/p>\n

The respect between the two is mutual, even after a back-and-forth battle that Orlando won over the Mavericks.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe\u2019s a tough guy,\u201d Flagg said about Banchero. \u201cReally skilled and can get to his spots. He\u2019s a great player (who) impacts the game in a lot of ways as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cI played against Paolo a little bit in pick-up and stuff back in school, so it was cool to kind of get against him in the real deal in the league.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jason Beede can be reached at jbeede@orlandosentinel.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Almost two years ago, Magic forward Paolo Banchero surprised then-Montverde Academy senior Cooper Flagg with the Gatorade national…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":643291,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3793],"tags":[7,686,149,4057,165,166,6,76,1412,80939,66],"class_list":{"0":"post-643290","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas-mavericks","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-dallas","10":"tag-dallas-mavericks","11":"tag-dallasmavericks","12":"tag-latest-headlines","13":"tag-mavericks","14":"tag-nba","15":"tag-orlando-magic","16":"tag-social","17":"tag-social-sports","18":"tag-sports"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116182667967658843","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643290","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=643290"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/643290\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/643291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=643290"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=643290"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=643290"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}