On the first possession of a scrimmage against the United States Olympic team last weekend, Cooper Flagg was playing defense and found himself getting switched on to one of the greatest players to ever play basketball.
Suddenly, he was face to face with LeBron James.
For the 17-year-old Flagg, it was a pinch-me moment.
“He said it hit him for about half a second and then he realized, ‘OK, time to lock in,’ and he was getting up under LeBron’s skin,” said Flagg’s personal trainer, Matt MacKenzie. “I think it hit him real quick and then he was like, ‘OK, gotta lock in, this is just another player.’
“He did say that was a moment where it did kind of make him realize for a second where he was and the task that he had at hand.”
Flagg, the Maine native who’s projected to be a top pick in the 2025 NBA Draft, did nothing to question that status over three days in Las Vegas, where he was invited to be a member of the U.S. select team that practiced and scrimmaged against the U.S. Olympic team to help them get ready for the Paris Games this summer.
