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He Studied Bird, Defends Like Kirilenko, But Plays Like No One You’ve Seen – A Cooper Flagg Season Review From The Duke Chronicle

The Duke Chronicle does a series after every basketball season that reviews each player’s season. This year, not surprisingly, it starts with Cooper Flagg.

Flagg had a brilliant year for Duke, leading the Blue Devils in points, rebounds, assists, steals and blocked shots. That would be amazing for anyone but is really just incredible for the second-youngest player in all of college basketball.

There’s just not much left to say about Flagg’s astonishing year. There have been comparison to Zion Williamson, but they are very different players. The main thing they have in common is that they’re both unusually smart and team oriented.

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However, Williamson knows he can drive to his left and score on anyone, while Flagg doesn’t have that level of dominance.The comparisons for Flagg are still evolving. In some respects you could compare him to Rick Barry – that’s a much more apt comparison than Larry Bird – but Barry was a purer shooter and had more of a mercenary, me-first attitude than does Flagg, who studied Bird’s Celtics and absorbed profound lessons on team play from the ‘80’s Celtics.

Former Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski suggested former NBA star Andrei Kirilenko, who is also 6-9 and a brilliant defender, but Flagg may ultimately prove to be a better offensive performer than Kirilenko was.

Jayson Tatum is gaining traction and that’s not too far off. Like Flagg, he plays hard on both ends, shoots well, passes well and rebounds too.

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We kind of want to suggest Manu Ginobli, but Ginobli was much flashier, sort of like Bird.

Like everyone of course, he’s the first of his name: Cooper Flagg is Cooper Flagg. We’ll know he’s had a great career when people start comparing younger players to him.

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