{"id":68888,"date":"2025-05-31T21:44:09","date_gmt":"2025-05-31T21:44:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/68888\/"},"modified":"2025-05-31T21:44:09","modified_gmt":"2025-05-31T21:44:09","slug":"future-no-1-draft-pick-cooper-flagg-did-something-zion-williamson-did-in-his-freshman-year-at-duke","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/68888\/","title":{"rendered":"Future No.1 Draft Pick Cooper Flagg did something Zion Williamson did in his freshman year at Duke"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Cooper Flagg carried on the legacy that Zion Williamson left at Duke University.<\/p>\n

With the 2025 NBA Draft coming up, there is a lot of hype surrounding Cooper Flagg<\/a>. The Dallas Mavericks<\/a> miraculously won the first overall pick in the draft lottery.<\/p>\n

Now, they will most likely pick Flagg to be their next franchise superstar<\/a>. His first year at Duke ended in heartbreak, as they missed out on a chance to compete for an NCAA National Championship.<\/p>\n

But there was palpable excitement to see how Flagg, who stood out in his one year at Duke, would adapt to the NBA.<\/p>\n

Well, he has achieved something in his only year in college basketball that fellow Duke alumnus Zion Williamson<\/a>, along with a handful of other NBA players, did.<\/p>\n

\"HoustonPhoto by Lance King\/Getty Images<\/p>\n

Read More: Dallas Mavericks warned another Draft prospect is better than Cooper Flagg, tipped to trade No. 1 pick for two-times NBA champion<\/a><\/p>\n

Cooper Flagg matched Zion Williamson\u2019s accomplishment<\/p>\n

Earlier this year, Cooper Flagg won the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) Men\u2019s Basketball Rookie of the Year award.<\/p>\n

On top of that, he was named the ACC Men\u2019s Basketball Player of the Year. He is one of only four players to win both awards in the same season.<\/p>\n

The last player to win the award was Zion Williamson in 2019, Marvin Bagley III<\/a> the year before in 2018, and Jahlil Okafor in 2015.<\/p>\n

Interestingly, all four players won the award while playing for the Duke Blue Devils. No other player has won both awards in the same year outside of Duke.<\/p>\n

Read More: Cooper Flagg in elite company with Anthony Davis, three freshman players in last 15 years have reached rare feat<\/a><\/p>\n

Flagg hoping to have better career than fellow Duke winners<\/p>\n

Out of all of these players, it\u2019s hard to say any of them have made a tangible and long-lasting impact in the NBA.<\/p>\n

The closest has been Zion Williamson, who, when not plagued with health concerns, is still as electrifying on the court as previously advertised.<\/p>\n

Cooper Flagg will hope that his career trajectory is far better than the other players mentioned above. He has the chance to be the next great NBA superstar.<\/p>\n

But these things are also a matter of luck. Flagg can do everything right and something can still go wrong. However, those problems are for the future, and for now, Flagg is living up to the high.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Cooper Flagg carried on the legacy that Zion Williamson left at Duke University. With the 2025 NBA Draft…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":68889,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[7,225,11381,6338,6,12,814],"class_list":{"0":"post-68888","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba-draft","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-cooper-flagg","10":"tag-jahlil-okafor","11":"tag-marvin-bagley-iii","12":"tag-nba","13":"tag-nba-draft","14":"tag-zion-williamson"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/114604636314881421","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68888","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=68888"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68888\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68889"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68888"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68888"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68888"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}