Cooper Flagg’s Defensive Prowess Steals the Spotlight: Plus jersey number story and NBA 2K26 cameo! Cooper Flagg, the star freshman from Duke and projected No. 1 overall pick in the 2025 NBA Draft, has been getting a lot of attention for his skills on the court. Tim Legler, who recently offered some insights on a potential Flagg weakness regarding his shooting form, now offers praise for his defense.
Legler says that “the most important thing is his lateral movement as an on-ball defender and then as a weak side defender, the ground he covers and how smart he is in anticipating where he’s supposed to be next and then his activity level. Like he can make plays even when he’s beaten off the dribble because of his ability to recover and athletically he can still get up there and bother you…Not a lot of guys come into the league that are high profile players, they want to score, they want opportunities, they want touches, usually they’re on bad teams, their defense isn’t as important…[H]is defense is going to be something that’s gonna be scrutinized.”
Legler notes that Flagg’s defense isn’t likely to be much of a concern, with one possible issue being that Flagg is still a teenager and his body hasn’t matured. He’s going to get knocked around for a while until he muscles up. When he does though, he’ll more than hold his own. We also learn that Cooper Flagg wore #2 at Duke in honor of a late friend, and that he switched back to #32 to honor his mother, who wore it in high school. He wore it in high school but obviously 32 is off limits at Duke because of Christian Laettner’s spectacular career.
Finally, NBA2K26 is coming out soon and Flagg is part of one of the trailers, which is really pretty cool. Flagg is now with the Dallas Mavericks, playing in the NBA Summer League. He participated in games against the Orlando Magic and Philadelphia 76ers.
