Red Flagg

It’s pretty much given that Duke’s Cooper Flagg will exercise his one-and-done rights and declare his intention to ball professionally when the season ends. The freshman is the presumptive No. 1 pick in the upcoming NBA Draft, a kid who exceeded even the lofty expectations surrounding him when he arrived on campus. 

Flagg caused a bit of a stir recently when he said in a piece in The Athletic that he might consider returning to Duke. “Sh*t, I want to come back next year,” was the exact quote. It was a lengthy story, however, and was said in the context of how much he enjoys college and competing for championships at the highest level. Add the fact that the Blue Devils have the No. 1-ranked recruiting class for 2025 on the way, which with Flagg and whomever else returns would make for an embarrassment of riches and presumably increase the fun. 

Few believe he’ll return to school, though the story and Flagg’s remarks ignited the hooperati and various opinionators about what he should do. The majority take is that he should declare for the NBA Draft, because by delaying even one year he could cost himself tens of millions of dollars in the long haul. 

Perhaps, but there’s a case to be made for returning to school for another year, precisely because it potentially benefits him over the long haul, in terms of physical maturity. No one disputes that Flagg can compete at the highest level. He demonstrated that for an entire college season and against NBA players last summer during pre-Olympic workouts. But if he declares for the Draft and turns pro this Spring, he will have jumped from high school and its four-month season, to top-tier college competition and its six-month season, to the NBA and its eight-to-nine month season and 82-plus game grind, all in the span of three years. And he’ll still be a teenager. 

Recall that he re-classified in high school to graduate a year early and enter college at age 17. He doesn’t turn 20 until Dec. 2026. He’s 6-9 and 205 pounds, but his body isn’t yet fully developed, and he’ll still be expected to compete, and excel, daily against grown-ass men. Tall ask. 

There’s no way to accelerate physical maturity, and another year of college would provide a small step in that direction. The financial argument for Flagg to turn pro immediately is compelling. I’ll spare details related to the salary cap and contract structures because 1) I don’t completely understand it, 2) it will rupture attention spans, and 3) the people who devise such systems are often those who love numbers and hate sports and should not be encouraged. The upshot is that rookie draft choices are slotted into early contracts and are not permitted to bargain for comparatively large numbers until three or four years into the league. 

If Flagg returns to Duke, he’d delay eligibility into his second, or so-called “rookie max”, contract. As a guide, last season’s No. 1 draft pick, French teenager Zaccharie Risacher, received a deal from Atlanta worth $57 million over four years, an average of a little over $14 million per season. Maximum contracts are based on a percentage of a team’s total salary cap. Projecting ahead with annual increases, if Flagg enters the NBA next season he will be eligible for an extension in 2029-30 that could pay him $67.8 million per season. 

So, by delaying one year, he could cost himself more than $50 million, the difference between the first year of a max deal and the last of a rookie contract. If his health and productivity hold, a similar dynamic could play out between the end of his second contract and start of a third deal. 

The advent of Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) and player pay have somewhat mitigated the traditional argument for college players to turn pro immediately. The question used to be: “What if he gets hurt and is never the same again and torches his pro career?” But Flagg’s valuation and endorsement deals this season are reported to be in the $4-million range. If he returns to Duke, he is projected to make more than $16 million next season. The decision then becomes whether to jump into the deep end now, or hope that another year’s maturity will benefit him down the line and perhaps help extend his career. 

Implicit in that call is answering the unknowable question: Where might he more likely suffer severe injury, during a college season workload, or in the middle of the nine-month NBA season as a 21-year-old when his body is still developing? Was his recent ankle sprain in the ACC Tournament a one-off or an omen? If he begins the NBA journey this year, there’s no telling what sort of toll it may take on his body by his mid- and late 20s, when he reaches the peak of his earning power. Perhaps he’s a physical outlier and is productive and efficient into his 30s. But should that be assumed for someone at 18? (We pause for a moment to recognize LeBron James, athletic marvel and possible mutant. 

The NBA’s career leading scorer also arrived in the league as a teenager and through talent, will, genetic blessings, self-care and good fortune, elevated himself into the GOAT discussion. At age 40, in his 22nd season, he is still balling at elite level. He averages 25 points, 8 rebounds and 8 assists, while shooting almost 52 percent from the field and 38 percent from 3-point range and playing 35 minutes per game. Consider, too, that he’s played 287 playoff games, the equivalent of 3½ entire seasons on top of the regular calendar payload; one might say he’s actually played 25½ seasons. Enjoy him now, because we will not see his like again.) 

Look, Flagg is going to make generational money regardless of when he turns pro. He and his progeny and extended family will be able to buy boats and bunkers and comforts to navigate our deteriorating landscape for decades to come. They can afford eggs. Any decision he makes requires financial advisors. He may choose “adult” or delay full immersion for a year, and the difference will be “wealthy” or “wealthier.” Pretty good gig.

NBA Action.......It's Fantastic (Especially When You Stay Up Late With Drugs And Don't Have to Go to Work)

We are now one week beyond my spine surgery. My scruff is turning into a real mess, I can't drive, my neck brace is annoying and I have a large bandage slowly falling off my neck. But on the positive side, nobody is nagging me to shower, folks buy food I want, the opioid-induced constipation has passed, and it's a very good stretch of the sports calendar for a fan on the mend. And I am stocked with licit and illicit narcotics to make the pain and ennui more tolerable.



A key component of passing the time has been watching the first two nights of the NBA season. With many stars on the move and a lot of high-profile rookies entering the league, I am excited to dig in and attempt to forget the dumpster fire that is the New York Jets.

One of my favorite things about the NBA is analyzing box scores. I did it religiously as a kid, when my mom would come home from work at 530 PM and hand me the sports section so I could learn what happened the previous night. While I have been able to watch chunks of five different NBA games over two nights, I have dug into all the box scores. I thought I would share my favorite five findings from the first two nights:

1) Andrew Wiggins gonna Andrew Wiggins.  You may have noticed Wiggins scored 21 points last night. Sounds impressive right? Like he's finally becoming the second T-Wolves threat that should keep folks from double-teaming KAT? Um, not really. It took Wiggins 27 shots to get there. And he had 0 assists. In 36 minutes. With KAT as a teammate. That is piss poor. I leave you with an eloquently titled YouTube video that sums up how T-Wolves fans feel about Wiggins.



2) PJ Washington has no fucks to give - award him the ROY now. My oldest kid somehow became a Kentucky Wildcats fan a couple years ago. So we watched their basketball team a lot last season. Tyler Herro was a beast for that team, but PJ Washington was the soul of the team. He has the game of an old-school power forward, but also with explosive leaping and nice mid-range jumper. He came out of the gates in a big way in his first game last night. The rookie PF who was the 12th pick overall for the Hornets started and lit up the Bulls with 27 points in 38 minutes. While he only had 4 rebounds, he did go 7 of 11 from the 3-pt line. New school PF stats. Bonus tidbit - the official favorite backup PG of G:TB had himself a game. Devonte' Graham is the backup PG for the Hornets. He put up 23 pts and 8 assists in 27 minutes and had a +18 rating. He backed up the egregiously overpaid Terry Rozier, who put up 7 pts and 6 assists in 30 minutes.



3. CTC for Jake Layman. My wife is a Maryland alumna. We pay attention to them. We went to an unremarkable Maryland-Marshall game in December 2015. We saw what was a pretty stacked Terps squad (Diamond Stone, Melo Trimble, Robert Carter). They also had a glue guy at SF named Jake Layman. Jake averaged b/w 11-13 ppg during his sophomore/junior/senior years. He ended up turning his "honorable mention All Big Ten" credentials as a senior into a second round pick. He took advantage of the opportunities he got with the Blazers early on in his career to get himself a nice little paycheck. Before this year (his fourth as a pro), he signed a 3-year, $11.5 MM contract with the T-Wolves. In his first game, he played 23 minutes off the bench and scored 10 pts, going 2 for 4 from behind the arc. Keep cutting them checks for Jake, who may have parlayed one strong quarter (see below) and a decent outside shot into a longer career than anybody expected.



4. Knicks have not lost that dumpster fire feeling. I'm going to give you two quintets of Knicks. Quintet 1: Marcus Morris, RJ Barrett, Bobby Portis, Julius Randle, Alonzo Trier. Quintet 2: Taj Gibson, Kevin Knox, Dennis Smith Jr., Elfrid Payton, Wayne Ellington. I want you to guess which group started the first game. I then want you to guess which quintet is bettter. I'll spare you the tension - the former quintet started their first game. And I bet the latter is the better group. The Knicks will suck ass this year, with an overabundance of redundant frontcourt veterans. The front office will feel compelled to play them, at the expense of Dennis Smith Jr and Kevin Knox. This franchise is awful. I rescinded my fandom over a decade ago, but was hoping they'd be remotely watchable this year. They won't be. And I'm further conflicted b/c MSG shares are a compelling value around the $269 level. The sum-of-the-parts value is high for that company and activist investors may be able to force that value unlock. If Dolan sells, I may unrescind the fandom that I rescinded. Lots of rescission potential on the horizon. Does that make sense? If not, give me a pass b/c Tramadol. Here is crazy Rappaport and Jim Norton doing a Mystery Science Theatre 3000-esque takedown of a video of Dolan's band.



5. Y'all Vleet Vleet Vleet Vleet. Freddy VanVleet had himself a ball game in the opener. With Kawhi gone and Kyle Lowry at the end of his peak, there are shots that need to be taken by the Raptors. Pascal Siakam should take another leap, but Freddy V has a big opportunity to do so as well. He opened the year with 34 points and 7 assists against the Pelicans. He only started 28 games last year, averaging 11 ppg, but we could see a huge uptick this year. He's only 25 y/o, so plenty of room for advancement. Will be fun to watch.

More fun games on tap for tonight: Bucks @ Rockets and Clippers @ Warriors. As your attorney, I advise you to get into an appropriate state of mind and enjoy.

NBA Potpourri - Math Nerd Edition

We're approaching the end of the NBA's regular season. This has been a fun one, with the three-pointers, the triple-doubles, the heated MVP race and the meshing of the Bay Area's superstar team. But we're seeing some twists toward the end of the regular season, as injuries have impacted several contenders and tightened races for home-court advantage. Let's dig in, shall we?

1) Russell the Love Muscle's Triple-Double Chase - It's in the Bag
After his latest ridiculous stat-line last night, Russell is averaging 31.8 ppg, 10.6 rpg and 10.4 apg this season. So the triple-double stat line is well within reach. Through 74 games, Russell Westbrook has 769 assists. That's a 10.4 per game clip. To ensure a triple-double, he needs 51 more in his last eight games, or 6.4 per game. So it's possible he clinches this portion of the feat in the next 4-5 games. He has 781 rebounds so far this season. At 10.6 per game, he only needs 39  more in his last eight games, a 4.9 per game clip.

2) The Eastern Conference Race for the #1 Seed is Wide Open
The Cavaliers are first right now, with 26 losses from their 73 games played. The Celtics are second, with 27 losses and 75 games played. The surprising Wizards are in the mix as well, with 28 losses and 74 games played. With the Cavs "reeling" (5-5 in their last ten games), both other teams have a legitimate shot. The real upshot of the #1 seed (other than home-court) is that you theoretically can play Toronto in the second round and avoid one of the other two. Methinks the Cavs pull this out, but will be fun to watch in the next three weeks.

3) The Western Conference Race - Also Wide Open
At press time, it is halftime of the Warriors-Spurs game, and the Spurs are leading by three at home. Going into the game, the Warriors had a 60-14 record and the Spurs had a 57-16 record. A Spurs win tonight would put them 1.5 games back, but only one back in the loss column. I think the Spurs get it done this year. Coach Pop has to be aware of the psychological significance of taking homecourt advantage, especially since the Spurs won the first two head-to-head match-ups this year, and are now leading in the third. I think the crew in San Antone gets it done and takes the #1 seed.

4) Back to the Thunder - is Big Russ the MVP? 
Today, my vote goes to Harden, given the Rockets' strong season (especially relative to the Thunder) and the comparability of his stat line (29/11/8) to Westbrook's (32/10/10). I am not a sucker for the "all in double-digits" pizzazz. But we still have about 10% of the regular season to go, so I have time to change. And the middle of the pack is pretty tight. The 4-6 seeds (Jazz, Clippers, Thunder) are separated by only two games in the loss column. Getting to the #4 seed would mean a team is only one spot behind the Rockets. So if Russ can lift his team higher (the #5 seed seems inevitable, given the Clippers find a way to suck balls at the end of every regular season), the MVP race could get tighter.

Happy viewing, fockers.

Dahntay Jones' NBA Career May Be Over. All Hail Dahntay Jones.

A news item made the tiniest of ripples in the NBA this week. The Brooklyn Nets cut Dahntay Jones as they pared their roster down to 15 spots. The cut itself wasn't that big of a surprise. The Nets are going nowhere and decided to keep some young players with upside like Donald Sloan and the-man-who-desperately-needs-a-nickname Willie Reed at the end of their bench, instead of an aging Jones.

What is a big surprise is that Dahntay Jones was still in an NBA camp, two months shy of his 35th birthday. And that Dahntay Jones had career earnings of $18 million from a career that spanned eleven seasons over twelve years. On my all-time "How the hell did these guys stick in the NBA for so long and get themselves paid?" team, he would be competing for a starting backcourt spot with Steve Blake and Alvin Williams.

(Editor's note: Williams had career earnings of $42 million. Blake, who's still theoretically an active player, has career earnings of $35 million.)

(Editor's second note: You may counter that Jones was a first-round pick, but it was the 20th pick in the 2003 Bron Bron draft, and the selections around him included luminaries like Zarko Cabarkapa, Zoran Planinic, Vigo Carpathian and Ndudi Ebi, which I'm pretty sure is pronounced "Nudie boobie". One of those players may be made-up. A picture of Zoran Planinic, ostensibly auditioning for White Men Can't Jump 2 a couple years ago, is below.)

Jones started his college career at Rutgers, then wisely transferred to Duke to avoid the sinkhole that is the Rutgers basketball team. While he did start and get a lot of time at Duke, he was somewhat in the shadows, next to the program's big stars: Battier, Boozer, Dunleavy and Williams.

Jones did get drafted and did bounce around a fair bit since 2003. Most casual NBA fans will vaguely remember Jones' game as that of a defensive stopper with attitude, supporting some decent Grizzlies and Pacers teams. He averaged 20 minutes per game only twice in his career, and averaged 10 ppg only once, while playing feisty defense. But they'll definitely remember him as an asshole, because even when he didn't play toward the end of his career, he did stuff like this:



I love stuff like that. I love love love the less skilled guys being assholes to hang around, doing the dirty work their teammates and coaches want from them.

And I loved Bob Thornton. Not many of you will remember the real #23, who came off the bench for the Knicks, Sixers, Timberwolves and Jazz in the 1980's and early 90's. He was an undersized Caucasian power forward who competed with Eddie Lee Wilkins, Brian Quinnett, Sidney Green and Ken "the Animal" Bannister for minutes in the feeble Knicks frontcourt in the pre-Ewing days. His biggest attribute seemed to be the six fouls he could/would aggressively lay on the other team's frontcourt players. He had no business being in the NBA, but hung on for seven years. He's now an assistant with the Grizzlies. In his first year in the NBA, he averaged 19 minutes, 5 points, 4 rebounds and 3 fouls per game with the Knicks. And he was an asshole. A glorious, underskilled, antagonistic asshole who boxed out with vigor, set pics with elbows up and hacked at the other team's skilled players to teach them a lesson about coming into the lane against them. he was the kinda player that a chubby kid from New Jersey with a great attitude and a terrible vertical leap could relate to. You know, the kinda kid who managed to get himself ejected from little league baseball games twice.

(Editor's note: Thornton had career earnings of $1.1 million.)

(Editor's second note: We have no idea why this paragraph is in this post.)

So let's raise a glass to a not-quite great one who got as much as he could out of his skill set, in an era of overpaid NBA players flaming out after one big contract by the time they hit 30. Let's salute a guy who knew that being a tenacious asshole would give his career legs and maybe help his team win against tough squads, even if meant REALLY REALLY REALLY being an asshole (under the tacit acceptance of his coaching staff for sure).

Movie Month: Once More with Feeling

“Basketball is a vehicle…,” says Dru Joyce Jr. as the camera pans slowly across an empty gymnasium. The metaphor introduced in the opening scene of the aptly-titled More Than a Game powers a poignant and textured story of brotherhood, fathers and sons, and friendship.

First-time director Kris Belman benefited from both good timing and good fortune. The project began as a 10-minute film-school assignment (that earned Belman a B+) and might have been relegated to obscurity but for a real-world narrative arc that would make Disney’s screenwriters envious. Belman brought his camera back to his home town of Akron, OH just as five boys were beginning their high school basketball careers. He finally wrapped shooting seven years, three state championships, one defining loss, and one rocket ride to stardom later.

The film, which opens nationally today, will garner a great deal of publicity because of LeBron James’ involvement. The truth, though, is that the NBA star’s story is just one of five. Perhaps the most compelling scene in the movie comes at the end of the five teammates’ career at St. Vincent-St. Mary’s High School. On senior night, when players walked to center court accompanied by their parents, LeBron (whose love for his mother is clearly documented in the film) chose to make his final entrance with Sian, Willie, Romeo, and Dru III.

We’ve spent some time documenting the themes of friendship and loyalty in More Than a Game. But if the movie’s soul is the friendship between the teammates, its heart lies in the relationship between Dru Joyce III and his father. The elder Joyce set out to do what million of other fathers do (and many more should) – he set out to be there for his son, coaching rec league and then AAU teams. It was only an accident of fate that put him on the bench as the head coach of St. Vincent-St. Mary’s after the Vikings had won consecutive state championships. The following season tested his faith, his belief in himself, and his relationship with his son.

We love sports because they reveal character. In the end, More Than a Game succeeds because of this fact. Failure teaches Coach Joyce a lesson in humility and perspective, and he in turn offers the same gift to his team. “My job is not basketball,” he says, “my job is to help them become men.”

My biases with respect to More Than a Game are clearly established, so let’s get that on the record. But despite the fact that I’m in the tank for the film based on a unique personal experience, it definitively exceeded my expectations. This is anything but a star turn for LeBron James, and his emphatic refusal to promote the movie as such speaks highly of his love for the people that helped him get where he is today. We give it 70 Gheorghes out of 77.