Cooper Flagg / Caitlin Clark
Hear it here!
The drafting of Duke’s Cooper Flagg last week brought together the craziness of what sports has become, the arrival of the next true NBA superstar, the true reason why teams win championships in any sport, and the ongoing puzzle of why the darling of women’s basketball remains a target of her own league.
Remember the name Cooper Flagg, if you don’t already know who he is, because he is the genuine article of what could be a legendary career. We have to couch the hoopla for this young man because the ability of him to stay injury-free is always the asterisk when looking ahead.
Flagg played one year for Duke, did not win a national championship as anticipated, and will begin his professional career next fall playing for a team no one expected him to join.
Before we get to all of that, what would you say if I stated that Flagg will have to take a pay cut in his rookie year in the NBA?
Are you still with me? Believe what I say. Flagg will sign a long-term contract worth a bushel of cash, but he probably will earn around $16 million next season.
In his single year at Duke, Cooper Flagg took in $28 million. That’s because college sports, meaning basketball and football in the major conferences like the SEC, Big Ten, and ACC, to name just three, pay their student-athletes (now, there’s a funny term) huge sums because of NIL (Name, Image, Likeness), the means in which players are paid and paid handsomely to say the least.
So, if you’re a major high school prospect ready to enter college, you won’t choose a school because of their campus, their academic program, their location or even their prominence in the sport. You’ll go where the money is. How’s that for having values?
This isn’t the case for EVERY top-flight athlete, or for the smaller schools that don’t figure in the world of television exposure and the college football playoffs, but it entails most of the best out there. That is why the NIL quota for Ohio State’s football team in 2025 is $35 million.
College football and basketball as we’ve known it are a thing of the past. We’re now talking about the minor leagues of the NFL and NBA.
Now, there is a semblance of restraint, if you can call it that. NIL Go, part of the settlement of a law suit, is intended to legitimize the NIL so that school boosters can’t simply throw unlimited riches at the players. But you can’t put the genie back in the bottle, and college sports has not been and will never be the same.
Let’s revert to more pleasant stuff and get back to Cooper Flagg the player.
He wound up being chosen by the Dallas Mavericks, an unlikely development in the NBA draft. Talk about rather being lucky than good, the Mavericks made a highly questionable move this past season when they traded perhaps the best player in the league, Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers. No one understood that deal.
Dallas fans were disgusted. NBA fans were aghast.
In the NBA, ping pong balls are used to determine the order of the draft in a lottery. The purpose is to discourage teams from simply tanking, purposely losing so they have the worst record, thus the #1 pick. But the ping pong balls are weighted toward the worst teams so that a losing club will have a better chance of a higher choice, but not automatically so. The Mavericks chance to win the lottery was 1.8%.
Shockingly, the Mavs came up winners. How’s that for making a bad trade during the season?
Rather be lucky than good.
Dallas got a great one. Cooper Flagg is a rare athlete. He is a 6 ft. 8 in., 18-year old who can do it all on a basketball court. Point guards are those who are superior ball handlers, bring the ball up court and set up others with pin-point passes. They can also shoot from outside. They are not the biggest athletes on the court. But Flagg excels at that position, can work his way inside and muscle the bigs, hit from short, medium, and long range and pass with the best of them. He is not a prima donna, and cares not about statistics. He is the ideal team player and can play any position on the court.
He may be the best big-man point guard since Magic Johnson of the Lakers.
Magic could do it all as well, but Flagg may be a better shooter and defensive player.
The kid also excels on defense.
Ah, now we’re getting to what really wins championships.
It’s become a cliche that defense is what it takes to win it all, but it’s a cliche because it’s true.
Oklahoma City captured the NBA title this year for that very reason.
It’s been said that offense can come and go. It’s variable whether a team shoots well in a game or series. Or whether the running game and passing attack clicks on a given week in football. Or whether your big hitters will hit home runs and overpower your opponent.
Good pitching always stops good hitting. Solid defense in football and basketball often alter the way team’s attack. The reason why? Playing good defense is a constant.
Playing good offense is a variable. Defense can be contagious. Offense not always so.
The past NBA Finals were proof. So was the Super Bowl when the defending champion Kansas City Chiefs had the great Patrick Mahomes as their quarterback. The Philadelphia Eagles had Jalen Hurts at that same position. No comparison there. Big edge to K.C.
But Philly had the superior defense, the powerful and quick 4-man pass rush that overpowered the Chiefs offensive line, creating misery for Mahomes who had to avoid the rush and deal with 7-men defending at the line of scrimmage and beyond. A dauntless task. And the Eagles controlled the game.
Cooper Flagg will key the Mavericks defensive effort, something, by the way, the traded Doncic could not, and set the tone for a team that will challenge for the heights.
With the drafting of Flagg, I wonder whether NBA teams will try to rough up the rookie the way WNBA teams have done to Caitlin Clark?
I assume they will try, but it won’t be anything like we’ve seen with Clark.
One of these days I’ll start this column dealing with the appalling way this women’s basketball phenomenon is treated instead of ending with it.
I’ve said it before, Caitlin Clark is why interest in women’s hoops has sharply risen in every way shape and form.
I’ve asked many people in the know, and the replies are basically that they don’t know.
But the one word that keeps popping up is jealousy. What else could it be?
Sure, defend her the best you can on the floor Do everything you can to limit her skills.
But Caitlin Clark gets mugged more often than not.
She gets knocked down with a vengeance.
How can the rest of the league resent her as much as they do?
She puts money in their pockets. She adds prominence to the sport.
When Clark missed a couple of games due to injury, the TV ratings dropped dramatically.
She’s a major plus for the league and for the sport.
Play her tough but fair. But be grateful for what Caitlin Clark has meant to the game.
I cannot understand what I see.
Maybe the others don’t care.
It sure looks that way.
