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NBA Champion boldly compares Cooper Flagg to LeBron James

Originally posted on Dallas Mavericks on SI
By Austin Veazey | Last updated Jun 17, 2025 3:13 PM ET

Eight days remain until the 2025 NBA Draft, where the Dallas Mavericks are heavily expected to take Duke Blue Devil Cooper Flagg. FanDuel has the odds of Flagg being the first pick at -100000, a massive disparity compared to the rest of the draft.

Flagg has had a meteoric rise over the last few years, going from a kid from Maine to Duke to the likely first-overall pick as the youngest player in the class is impressive. And the man responsible for "discovering" him has lofty expectations.

Ex-NBA Champion Brian Scalabrine, who was on the 2008 Boston Celtics squad, played a large part in bringing Cooper Flagg to the main stage after hearing rumors of him in Maine. Scalabrine appeared on the "Dan Patrick Show" on Tuesday, where he compared Flagg to arguably the greatest player of all time when asked to give a "non-white guy" comparison.

"I think it's LeBron James without having to be 260 pounds and like a freight train. Cooper Flagg is a supercomputer... Everything you tell him, within 24 hours he's figured it out. The next time you tell him something else... I was working him out in Maine. On Day two, I pretty much came to him and his parents and said, 'Listen, I can't help you anymore.'...

"It just got to a point where I couldn't help him anymore, he was too good. He would just pick things up. Workouts are supposed to be challenging and you're supposed to push guys to do something better... He just kept mastering every single thing... I've never met someone that just can pick up things at such a high rate."

It's unlikely that Flagg will be as dominant of a scorer as immediately as LeBron James was, and he'll never be the athlete LeBron was and still is because LeBron has an argument as the greatest athlete ever. But that processing ability will be invaluable, as he'll be surrounded by future Hall of Famers Anthony Davis, Klay Thompson, and Kyrie Irving while having another as a head coach in Jason Kidd. That will be massive for his development.

This article first appeared on Dallas Mavericks on SI and was syndicated with permission.

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