By Reese Merritt
@reesemerritt_
Maine, the northeasternmost state in the U.S., is the birthplace of a number of celebrities, from actor and race driver Patrick Dempsey to actress Anna Kendrick to horror writer Stephen King.
The next native Mainer likely to make his mark and become a household name is Cooper Flagg. Flagg, who hails from Newport, Maine, is the consensus top prospect in high school basketball and is the favorite to be the No. 1 pick in the 2025 NBA Draft.
While King’s best-selling novels were known for giving readers vivid nightmares, Flagg’s style of play also puts fear into the hearts of opponents.
According to a 247Sports scouting report, “Cooper Flagg is an elite two-way prospect. His instincts are off the charts on both ends of the floor and he competes with a quiet type of killer instinct.”
Flagg’s scary-good skills have impressed future Hall of Famers like Golden State Warriors point guard Steph Curry.
“Cooper Flagg, when he’s out there, he’s the one that shows just a know-how and a confidence and like a basketball IQ, just trying to make the right play at all times,” Curry told Slam Magazine. “He can obviously show his athleticism and his overall skill set, but he’s one that I’ve seen that’s like never really in a hurry out there. And for the high school level, that’s hard to find cause they’re so athletic, so fast, they rely on that. But he almost plays like an NBA style.”
Long before the 6-foot-9 forward became a national sensation known by Curry or before he committed to Duke University, Flagg started honing his game by competing against older competition back home in Maine at an early age.
After starring at Nokomis Regional High School, Flagg’s mother, Kelly, played Division I basketball at the University of Maine from 1995-1999, and his father, Ralph, played for Eastern Maine Community College.
When Cooper was in elementary school, Kelly realized that he needed a challenge. So, she enrolled Flagg in a fourth grade recreational basketball league as a second grader. He rose to the challenge, eventually following in his parents’ footsteps and playing at Nokomis High — alongside his twin brother, Ace, and right behind his older brother, Hunter.
“Basketball has always been ingrained in me thanks to my mom and dad,” Cooper Flagg said in his commitment video, announced on social media in conjunction with Slam Magazine. “Growing up in Maine, I had to work twice as hard to gain the respect and recognition of the basketball world.”
In Cooper Flagg’s freshman year, 2021-2022, he and his brothers helped lead the Warriors to a 21-1 season, culminating in the school’s first boys basketball title. As a high school freshman, Flagg was named Maine Gatorade Player of the Year.
Buzz began to build around Flagg’s name – first at home in Maine and then around the country. Earl Anderson, Flagg’s head coach at Nokomis, told the Bangor Daily News that he “could not tell you how many kids would line up for autographs.”
Then came a decision for the Flagg family in a cinematic fashion. Flagg was offered the opportunity to take his competitive shot-blocking, and instinctive two-way play-making abilities 1,500 miles away from his home — away from his mother and father, and Maine — to Montverde Academy, known for regularly producing a surfeit of NBA players. Or, he could continue his high school career at Nokomis.
The historic program at Montverde Academy appealed to Flagg, leading him and Ace to make the move to Montverde, Fla., for their sophomore year. From that point on, a list of achievements broke through like a landslide.
Flagg earned MVP honors at the National Basketball Players Association Top 100 Camp in late June, then represented USA Basketball at the 2022 FIBA U17 World Cup, earning a gold medal and setting a single-game record for rebounds, with 17, against Spain in the final. He was named USA Basketball’s Male Athlete of the Year in 2022, and was the MVP of the 2023 Spalding Hoophall Classic.
His personal trainer, Matt MacKenzie, said that success all traced back to Flagg’s Maine-instilled work ethic.
“It is rare, but to me his success is not an accident,” MacKenzie told the Bangor Daily News. “He has a blue-collar work ethic and was taught from a young age that success is earned, not given. He genuinely loves the game, loves to be coached and absolutely lives to compete. It’s scary how special he could be.”
Even though he plays in Florida now and will take his talents to Durham, N.C., next year, Flagg still proudly represents his home state.
“Something that I’m taking a lot of pride in is just proving to everybody from Maine and everybody [from] the rest of the country and the world that kids from Maine can make it and they can be good enough if they really put their mind to it,” Flagg said.
Photo courtesy of Gregory Payan/Associated Press