Where were you right after turning 18? Well, if you were Cooper Flagg, you were hanging 42 points in an ACC matchup against Notre Dame, breaking the all-time Duke record for most points scored in a game by a freshman.
Since I’m neither 18, nor am I Cooper Flagg (what a surprise), it’s not even theoretically possible for me to score 42 on Notre Dame, so all I did last week was just post my latest NBA draft big board.
Flagg’s game was obviously THE big news of the week, and it’s pretty much impossible to ignore, but, as always, there’s always a lot of interesting stuff going on in the world of college basketball. Let’s roll.
Flagg’s versatility
So, Flagg has pretty much separated himself as a player that stands in a tier of his own for the 2025 NBA draft. It seems like after turning 18, he has found another gear to his game, especially on offense. After his ridiculous outburst against Notre Dame, Flagg is now approaching a mind-blowing, elite company of just 5 freshmen since 2008, who have logged 14+ BPM in college.
Flagg, obviously, isn’t there yet – there’s a large chunk of season still to be played, but he’s scratching some incredible heights.
At the beginning of the season, some people held Flagg’s offense against him, even citing it as a factor that may justify taking someone else with the 1st pick. Personally, I never bought any of those arguments for the reasons I previously discussed, mainly Flagg being thrown into a super high usage role that he needed time to adjust. Plus, there were more than enough flashes for then 17 year-old Flagg to think that he’s going to be fine.
Right now, he has the metrics that back up him being a very good player on offense: 58.1 TS%, 25.5% AST, 80% FT shooting and an ever improving 3 point percentage.
One of the things I wanted to focus on is Flagg’s offensive versatility. Just look how diverse his shot generation is.
I think one of the things that’s really great about Flagg’s offense is that you can really use him in a variety of ways. I do enjoy his P&R versatility because he’s become a sizeable threat both as the ball handler and the pick setter and generally, he’s very good operating at that straight up area around the free throw line.
As the ball handler, Flagg generates 0.979 points per shot, which is good for 71st percentile, per Synergy. His ever-growing ability to punish defenses for dropping deep on ball screens should gradually unlock new levels to this aspect of his game.
As the pick setter, Flagg can now both pop on the three point line, roll to the basket or stop on a short roll, where his quick decision making shines through, with the main beneficiary being Khaman Maluach, who is always ready to feast on those lobs.
Big man Khaman
…and Khaman is indeed feasting on those lobs. Statistically, he’s one of their very best players is Khaman Maluach, despite playing less than 50% of total minutes.
I admit I’m still kind of at a loss where Maluach stands within the draft context and what his projection might be. He’s an absolute giant on the court, standing at 7’2″, 250 lbs, and the frame alone warrants paying a premium. As an offensive player, he makes you think twice about going into the paint.
Interestingly enough, his BLK% stands at 6%, which is generally very good, but Maluach is just such a presence inside the paint that instinctively you’d expect more, though one of the ways his presence is felt is that he limits opposing paint touches.
Offensively, his role is very simple for Duke – set picks (which he’s very good at, and it shouldn’t be understated), roll to the basket, catch lobs, cut off ball and crash the offensive glass for easy putback opportunities. These actions make up essentially all of Maluach’s shot diet.
His limited BAL tape did flash some shooting juice, but it hasn’t translated at all to college.
One thing that limits his upside is the lack of assists; he’s such a good screen setter and an intimidating force rolling all the way to the rim that if he added some short roll distribution ability, it would raise his ceiling immensely. Sadly, it’s pretty hard to find flashes of that on tape.
VJ and his (awesome) metrics
There’s been quite a few players that I’ve been going back and forth on during this NBA draft cycle. One of them is Baylor’s VJ Edgecombe, who I have sitting at a pretty 5th place in my latest mock draft, with the potential to go as high as 3rd down the line.
Since missing that UConn game at the beginning of December, Edgecombe’s play has been noticeably trending upwards as he’s finding his feet in college basketball. He bounced back from a struggle at Iowa State with good performances in wins against Cincinnati and Arizona State.
There are some nuances to VJ’s eval, because he’s a player with really impressive highs and vnoticeable lows. He may be the most outrageous athlete in this draft class and he does put that to very good use, which is reflected in advanced STL, BLK and REB metrics. If Edgecombe keeps them up, he’s going to be in a very good company.
I think he’s a ridiculously good help defender who has flashed a very impressive ability to be an effective roamer on defense, a role which is typically reserved for longer players than the 6’4” Edgecombe. So, in that sense, he definitely plays bigger than his size and probably, as of right now, is more of a wing, than a guard.
Obviously, VJ is not perfect on defense. Against Cincinnati, there were instances of poor screen navigation, closeouts and unnecessary deep help defense, which made it very difficult for him to close out on the shooters when the ball was kicked out to the perimeter.
Offensively, everybody knows that Edgecombe has to improve as a shooter, and I won’t dwell on that. I love his explosiveness and creativity getting downhill, as there were some all-star like flashes from him.
One thing that may be understated with Edgecombe is his struggles making layups. This aspect may be getting swept under the rug a bit with the overall rim numbers being boosted by the fact that he just dunks so much, but, per Synergy, Edgecombe is just 21/47 on layups (14th percentile). He does have creative moves in his arsenal, like step-throughs and eurosteps, but his touch and inability to find angles lets him down too often.
CMB needed this
South Carolina’s Collin Murray-Boyles is for sure one of the draft Twitter darlings. As an undersized center, he seems like an ill-fit in the modern NBA, but he plays way bigger than 6’7” and is actually a great defensive player.
One notable thing before last weekend was that CMB really struggled with high level opposition so far this season. On Saturday, he came out with the intention of beating those allegations, outplaying none other than the National Player of the Year favourite Johni Broome. He really needed a good game after struggling for a while.
The CMB discourse is very interesting because a large part of that discourse is made up from his perceived shortcomings at the next level. One, he’s too small. Second, he can’t really shoot from the outside. Third, his play diet is heavy on post-ups, which is unlikely to stick in the NBA.
But the fact that CMB himself presents a pretty unique threat to his defenders is not talked about enough, and Broome really felt that threat, having his worst game of the season before exiting with the injury in the 2nd half.
Though, as I mentioned, CMB does generate a large chunk of his offense from the post, he’s a very frequent operator at the top of the key, as he’s a very capable playmaker from that area. He manipulates that threat into creating drives for himself – drives make up 20.4% of his shots, with isolation accounting for 12%.
There’s not a lot of centers who drive to the basket that much, and really, Broome had little answer to CMB’s ability to get to the paint. Though he’s not an explosive driver by any means, Murray-Boyles has a knack for carving out space thanks to his frame and footwork.
If he can’t get by his man initially, he always has his back-to-the basket game to help him out. Per Synergy, Murray-Boyles is in the 80th percentile in post-up situations, as he’s a threat to both score and pass the ball, though his negative assist-to-turnover ratio remains somewhat of a concern.
Dailey Jr. and his mask
One of the prospects that I think are flying under the radar is UCLA’s sophomore Eric Dailey Jr. The reason for him being under the radar up until now is that he wasn’t actually playing super big minutes, a bit like Arizona’s Carter Bryant, whom I covered last week.
But the tools, production and potential NBA fit made me put Dailey Jr. into the top 30 of my January big board. He didn’t have his greatest week in games against Michigan (H) and Maryland (A) – Dailey Jr. struggled shooting the ball, which was likely affected by the fact that he was wearing a protective mask. Rarely does it help with shooting the ball, unless your name is Rip Hamilton.
Dailey Jr. is a very intriguing two-way player who, at least for me personally, ticks a lot of boxes for an NBA wing. He’s around 6’8” with a reported 7’1” wingspan. Alongside that, he has a really high release point on his shots and has flashed some contested shot making ability with a solid jump shot base and a good elevation off the ground.
His 3 point shooting volume is not super high (6.7 per 100 possessions), but at least some of that I think is due to UCLA’s playing style which is not very heavy on 3 point shooting.
Dailey has the skills that complement his shooting. Getting this out of the way, self-creation is not one of them. He’s not a great player in isolation or post-up situations. On occasion I do catch him fall in love with the iso ball just a bit too much. Dailey Jr. doesn’t really have the handle, explosion or off-ball shooting ability to take players 1-on-1.
Despite that, I think he’s a high IQ player, which is the reason why I have him over guys like Rasheer Fleming. He has good court awareness, processes the game and makes decisions quickly. Also, he’s a good pick setter for a wing and has the presence of mind to read defenses, which, combined with solid lateral quickness and strong hips, makes for some nice pick slips.
Besides that, Dailey Jr. is a very solid rebounder – he knows how to carve out space and position himself to contest for offensive rebounds, plus, I think that he has a real good nose for where the ball is going to end up.
The paint defense, which Dailey Jr. has to do on occasions, is something that could be improved upon. 1.2 BLK% is kind of meh for a player of his size; I’d like him to be a better side rim protector. At Maryland, Dailey Jr. picked up 3 out of his 4 fouls defending close to the basket, struggling with the physicality of Derik Queen and Julian Reese.
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