The top of the 2026 NBA Draft is shaping up to be an all-timer. Case and point? The NBA season started just over a week ago, and fans of teams who have no shot at competing for the title are already starting to think about the lottery balls that will rattle around in mid-May that will decide who gets the right to select the next future superstar of the league.
By now, you’re probably familiar with the “Big Three” in this upcoming draft class: Kansas’ Darryn Peterson, Duke’s Cameron Boozer and BYU’s AJ Dybantsa. All three of those players are in contention to go No. 1 in about eight months. But there’s another name that should’ve hypothetically been in contention: Cooper Flagg.
The 2024-25 CBS Sports Player of the Year put up a historic one-and-done season at Duke after reclassifying to the 2024 recruiting cycle to join the Blue Devils in time for the 2024-25 campaign. There was little doubt that Flagg was going to be the No. 1 pick in the 2025 draft from the moment he decided to reclassify to play college basketball a year early.
In fact, the term “Capture the Flagg” made its way around social media throughout the NBA season from fans of teams hoping they would get to root for him one day. It didn’t matter who got the pick because Flagg’s versatility as a two-way player made him a perfect fit for anyone picking at the top. It just so happened to be that the Dallas Mavericks — months removed from trading face-of-the-franchise Luka Dončić to the Los Angeles Lakers — were the team that won the lottery.
College basketball rankings: The Top 100 and 1 Players entering the 2025-26 season
Kyle Boone
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