Cooper Flagg impressed this Fort Worth coach, but not for the reason you'd think

Yahoo

6 hours ago

Long time North Crowley boys basketball coach Tommy Brakel was a head coach at the 2024 McDonald's All-American game where one of the players was Cooper Flagg, who is expected to be the first overall pick in the 2025 NBA Draft.
Tommy Brakel has coached major Division I and future NBA players, but in a head coaching career that spans more than 25 years, he had not coached 'the generational talent.'
He's won district championships, state titles, and coached against some of the best players Texas has seen since he took the job as head coach at North Crowley in 1998. He has never coached That guy. The mythical player who exists on social media, but in real life actually is better than whatever creation a computer programmer can invent.
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He had the opportunity when he was picked to be the head coach of the West roster during the 2024 McDonald's All-American game, and one of the players was Cooper Flagg.
'First of all, I was shocked I was even asked to do this. It wasn't even on a bucket list because I didn't think it was even possible,' Brakel said Tuesday morning on a phone interview. 'And when I did it, it was nothing like I was expecting at all.
'I thought, 'This is an All-Star game. It's a bunch of All-Americans. I'm this public high school coach from Texas. They're not going to listen to, or be interested, in me.' It was the polar opposite. That was the most coachable group of guys I have ever been around. They all had a business plan to raise their NBA stock. You would talk, and they would all lean in and listen. Everything that Cooper did stood out.
'They keep saying, 'Generational talent.' He really is.'
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On Wednesday night in New York, NBA commissioner Adam Silver will announce the Dallas Mavericks select Flagg with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2025 NBA Draft. There is no way team owner Patrick Dumont and team president Rick Welts will allow GM Nico Harrison to satisfy his desires of trading Flagg to the L.A. Lakers for a box of Pop Tarts and a conditional 2049 second round pick.
The NBA is loaded with a sad list of former No. 1 overall picks who didn't meet the hype, needs, prayers, or expectation. Anthony Bennett, Kwame Brown, Michael Olowokandi, Greg Oden, Pervis Ellison, Markelle Fultz, Ben Simmons and on and on.
There are no flags on Flagg's resume to suggest he will be one of those stories. He is the celebrated (and dreaded) 'Sure Thing Who Can't Miss.'
His arrival should not exonerate Harrison from the specifics of dealing Luka Doncic to the Lakers for Anthony Davis and some Target gift cards; the Mavs winning the draft lottery was the lightning bolt inside of a lightning strike.
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Flagg will not make the Mavericks a contender in the 2026 NBA playoffs. The only rookie to ever do that was Magic Johnson, in 1980, when he led the team to a title over the Philadelphia 76ers.
No one of any note has consumed enough drugs to say Flagg is Magic. But, at least for the people who have spent time with Flagg, like Brakel, are all impressed.
'Other than adding some weight and strength, there is nothing about him that stands out that he needs to do this or he needs to do that,' Brakel said. 'He has great anticipation. He's a very intelligent kid.
'On the offensive side of the floor, he always, always made the right basketball play. He's a great rebounder. A great defender. It was his basketball IQ that was just phenomenal. He wasn't a kid who was looking to get his. He always made the right basketball play, whether it was his shot or setting up a teammate.'
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Brakel spent four days with Flagg, in April of 2024, at the event in Houston. These events cover practices, time at a Ronald McDondald's House, dinners, and the game itself. BTW - Flagg's East team defeated Brakel's West roster, 88-86.
At these games, it's not totally uncommon for a player to project an affected, 'above it' vibe, that can turn off the adults in the room. That behavior normally starts at home, and with a friend group, more commonly called enablers.
In Brakel's experience, he saw none of that from either roster, which were loaded high end talent that will be soon be lottery picks.
'Everyone there knew who he was. He was the top-ranked kid. He was going to Duke. The first pick in the draft, all of that,' Brakel said. 'When you do things like we do, go to dinner, practice, hang out with the kids at the Hope house, the players really let their guards down.
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'It's really hard to fake what I saw from him. His care for the kids. How he was with his teammates. How polite he was with everyone. It was all genuine. It was all 'Please. Thank you. Yes sir. No ma'am.' All of it.
'The No. 1 thing I took away from all of that is here is this 17-year-old kid, and everyone thinks of the world of him, and the first impression he made is the person he is. That's what will always stand out with me.'
Like the rest of the world, Brakel was stunned when he heard the Mavericks won the draft lottery. It took him a few hours to actually believe it.
Cooper Flagg will soon be a Dallas Maverick, and at least what Brakel saw up close, he saw nothing to suggest the young man is anything other than a generational talent.