Duke Blue Devils forward Cooper Flagg is heading to the 2026 NBA draft as the favorite to be picked No. 1 overall. With his rise as a possible No. 1 pick, Sports Illustrated magazine revealed that it will be him who will be gracing the cover of their July 2025 issue, saying that the forward is ready for the “next stage.”
“Every NBA team had the same goal: To capture the Flagg. @cooper_flagg graces the cover of Sports Illustrated ahead of the draft,” they captioned their Instagram post.
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As Flagg comes into the draft with plenty of hype, especially with the rebuilding Dallas Mavericks with the No. 1 pick, a lot of fans have started contemplating his future over in Dallas.
“Future maverick i fear,” one fan said.
“With the first pick the Dallas mavericks select Cooper “the MAINE EVENT” Flagg out of the university of Duke and the town of NEWPORT MAINE. 🙌🔥👏. ……… a few min later ……… the Dallas mavericks have traded the rights to Cooper Flagg to the Boston Celtics for Jaylen Brown 🙌🔥👏,” one Celtics fan hoped.
“Cooper is the future of BASKETBALL!!!!!” another fan predicted.
Meanwhile, there were the usual comments regarding Silver switching the draft picks from Charlotte to Dallas so that the Mavs could get Cooper Flagg.
“I’ll never forgive the nba for switching Dallas and Charlotte for the top pick 😒” one fan lamented.
“I’m kinda glad Adam gave him to the mavericks. The tanking culture needs to stop,” claimed one fan.
“NBA is rigged. @cooper_flagg should have been a @hornets but the @nba had to do damage control from the Luka trade because they wanted their favorite player LBJ to have another super team in LA. NBA is a joke,” claimed another commenter.
Cooper Flagg addresses missed possible game winner in Final Four loss vs. Houston
In that same July 2025 issue, Cooper Flagg talked about that one moment that he would regret for the rest of his career. Houston capped off one of the most explosive runs against Duke during the Final Four, and Cooper Flagg had the chance to stop that run. He addressed this moment in that Sports Illustrated issue.
“I’m not going to beat myself up over whether I could have taken one more dribble or whether I could have done something different … You get to a spot, you raise up, and you trust the work that you put in over time. I’m just going to live with what I trusted,” Flagg said.
Houston went on to beat Duke, 70-67 in the Final Four. However, the Cougars failed to win the NCAA championship, losing to Florida in the championship game.
Related: ‘An Absolute Monster’ — ESPN Analyst Seth Greenberg Praises Cooper Flagg on The Pat McAfee Show
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