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With Cooper Flagg due to be the top overall pick in the 2025 NBA Draft, Baron Davis has an interesting player comparison for the reigning National College Player of the Year.
The 18-year-old phenom made a tremendous impact during his first and lone collegiate season with the Duke Blue Devils. The 6-foot-9 forward showed his all-around game with averages of 19.2 points, 7.5 rebounds, 4.2 assists, 1.4 steals and 1.4 blocks per game while leading the Blue Devils to the Final Four.
Davis knows a thing or two about great NBA players. The former two-time All-Star guard played 13 seasons in the league (1999-2012) and matched up against some of the greatest players in Michael Jordan, Kobe Bryant and LeBron James. The 46-year-old says that Flagg reminds him of former Utah Jazz Swiss Army Knife Andrei Kirilenko.
“He reminds me a lot of Andrei Kirilenko,” says Davis in a one-on-one interview. “How he moves, how he can do a lot of things. I think he's more offensively adapt. But just his motor, his build, his frame, and the way he can command attention on the offensive end and the defensive end.”
The 6-foot-9 Kirilenko was an All-Star who was named to the All-Defensive Team on three occasions. He made a name for himself as a versatile forward, spending 13 seasons in the league while averaging 16.5 points, 8.1 rebounds, 3.1 assists and 1.9 steals per game in his best season.
“When you look at somebody like that, and you say, ‘OK, Dallas gets Cooper Flagg right now, you start looking at their front court with Cooper Flagg and Anthony Davis, right? The pieces that they already have. And you say, ‘Hey, you got a really good anchor.' You got a really big young guy coming in, bringing athleticism, a 6-foot-10 skill set that could play ball at power forward,” Davis says.
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The Dallas Mavericks hold the No. 1 overall pick in the draft after winning the lottery. That means the Mavericks — who are only a year removed from advancing to the NBA Finals — will likely select Flagg (assuming they don't trade out of the position). That means Flagg will join a squad that's already loaded with All-Stars such as Kyrie Irving, Anthony Davis and Klay Thompson.
Had the Mavericks not been hampered by injuries to Irving and Davis during the second half of the season, they likely would have been a playoff team.
“I think he's going to be great, especially going to a veteran team like Dallas with all the pieces that they have,” says Davis. “It's a lot less pressure for him to carry a team. He'll come in and he'll use his talents to be a key and important piece to the team. He's going to grow into a leadership role faster on that team than he would figuring it out like some of these rookies on these other teams.”
We'll see just how dynamic he is when Cooper Flagg takes the floor with a Mavericks team looking to rebound from a disappointing 2024-25 season.
