NBA rumors: Cooper Flagg earns eye-opening Kawhi Leonard comparison
03/23/2025 02:58 PM
Before he even stepped foot on campus at Duke University, Cooper Flagg was already being hailed as a generational prospect. The combination of size, skill, approach, athleticism and appreciation for both the history and nuances of the game of basketball resulted in lofty comparisons that have ranged from Kevin Garnett to Anthony Davis to Shawn Marion to Scottie Pippen. We’ve even heard one extremely ambitious — and surely not at all racially motivated — comparison from Hall of Fame college basketball coach Jim Boeheim who drew parallels between Flagg and Larry Bird.
Now as we’re just three months out from the 2025 NBA Draft, where Flagg will presumably the sixth Duke Blue Devil to earn the distinction of being the first overall draft pick, another notable name is in the mix when it comes to who Cooper Flagg is being compared to.
“The best comp I’ve heard from our scouts is prime Kawhi Leonard,” one Western Conference general manager told ESPN’s Jonathan Givony and Jeremy Woo. “Now, that’s not perfect because they are very different players at the same age, but it’s the one I like in terms of their style of play, two-way versatility, passing and the fact that they can both guard point guards, wings and big men.”
It is important to note that at age 18, Flagg is widely considered to be not only the best player in the 2025 draft class, but one of the most highly-touted prospects to come into the NBA at any age in the last 25 years. Meanwhile, when Leonard was 18 years old, he was just a four-star recruit and freshman at San Diego State, still a year away from making his mark with the Aztecs and establishing himself as one of the more intriguing prospects in the 2011 draft class.
But it was Kawhi Leonard’s drastic improvement over time that makes him one of the 40 or so best players in NBA history. Someone who is a two-time NBA Finals MVP and one of the best defensive players in the history of the sport.
Like Leonard in 2011, Flagg will enter the NBA with his defense ahead of his offense. At the very least, Flagg’s jumper will need to be improved if he hopes to live up to any of these lofty expectations, and for a guy who is wired the way he is, there’s very little concern about whether it will or not. But even still, there’s no question that Flagg’s game at this age is far ahead of where Leonard was at a similar point in his trajectory.
“He’s a better shooter, a better passer and a better overall player as a freshman,” the anonymous general manager said of Flagg.
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