Cooper Flagg and Paige Bueckers are dominating the NCAA tournaments for the Duke men and Connecticut women, respectively. But they’re more than college superstars — they represent a glimmer of hope for fans of rebuilding professional teams like the Washington Wizards and Mystics.
Flagg has led the Blue Devils to their 18th Final Four with 19.5 points per game. Bueckers has been a scoring machine, dropping a Connecticut tournament record 40 points in the Huskies’ Sweet 16 victory.
The pair are widely expected to be the top picks in this year’s NBA and WNBA drafts.
“Little by little it’s dawned on her, I think, that there is no next year,” Connecticut coach Geno Auriemma said of Bueckers. “There is no ’I can get this anytime I want.’ You’re going to have to get it now or it won’t be available anymore.”
Duke coach Jon Scheyer is in a similar boat with Flagg. While Bueckers has already declared for the draft, Duke’s freshman phenom hasn’t publicly addressed his options.
Scheyer said he sees the writing on the wall, though, noting that fans wasted their breath when they chanted for “one more year” with Flagg.
“I can dream about that,” Scheyer said Monday on the “Dan Patrick Show.” “He’s got to take the next dream in his mind, and that’s to be taken in the NBA draft and start his professional career.”
College basketball fans see history in the making. NBA and WNBA diehards see the future.
“This is somebody who scrimmages against the Olympic team, held his own,” Dan Patrick said on his show last week. “He’s 18 years of age. He’s going to make $1 billion if he stays healthy.”
Bueckers isn’t squaring off with Olympians yet, but even superstar Caitlin Clark — last year’s No. 1 pick — was left off of a stacked Team USA last summer.
Bueckers and Flagg are the unanimous top prospects in this year’s drafts, generational players who could single-handedly help lay the foundation for a needy franchise.
Flagg is a box-score stuffer who can do it all. Standing 6-foot-9, the 18-year-old has averaged 18.9 points and 7.5 rebounds per game during his lone season at Duke. He has the size and versatility to score at all three levels, connecting on 37% of his three-pointers while adding more than one block per outing.
The race to land Flagg is heating up.
The woeful Wizards have long been the favorite to land the No. 1 pick in this year’s draft, which would likely send Flagg to the nation’s capital. But the Utah Jazz and Charlotte Hornets, the league’s other cellar dwellers, have the same odds of acquiring the top selection in the NBA draft lottery.
The potential addition of Flagg would almost certainly mean the most to long-suffering Wizards fans. The Jazz are only a few seasons removed from postseason runs with Rudy Gobert and Donovan Mitchell. The Hornets have the promising young duo of LaMelo Ball and Brandon Miller.
While Wizards fans celebrate the development of rookies Alex Sarr, A.J. Johnson, Bub Carrington and Kyshawn George, none of them look like the franchise cornerstones who could lead a quick turnaround.
Instead, the Wizards’ social media circles are filled with eager fans salivating over Flagg’s stat lines.
“We need him at all costs,” one post on the Wizards subreddit reads. “Trade everything and everyone.”
The Wizards need a star.
But so do the Mystics, who are in the midst of their own franchise-wide reset. The franchise fired coach Eric Thibault and his father, general manager Mike Thibault, after failing to reach the playoffs last season.
Former league MVP Elena Delle Donne remains away from basketball after stepping away from the Mystics last offseason. After a quiet free-agency period, the franchise will likely look to the draft to rebuild.
A handful of trades and last season’s underwhelming finish landed the Mystics three of the top six selections in the upcoming WNBA draft. Bueckers likely won’t be on the board when Washington makes its first pick at No. 3, but the bevy of picks could give the Mystics enough capital to trade up.
A flashy, win-now trade would be a departure from the forward-focused timeline presented by new Mystics general manager Jamila Wideman. She said the franchise will need a “flexible toolkit” to contend.
“I’m not going to say I have a singular philosophy about how to build a roster,” Wideman said at her introductory press conference in February. “What I do think is that we have to build an organization that can thrive in many different circumstances.”
Flagg returns to the court Saturday night for a Final Four matchup with Houston. Bueckers was set to play Monday night with a heavily favored Connecticut squad taking on No. 1 seed USC.
• Liam Griffin can be reached at lgriffin@washingtontimes.com.
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