Duke basketball: Top recruit gives Blue Devils major reason to dream

A major Duke basketball recruit seems to be begging to be a Blue Devil. 

Jon Scheyer has offered three players in the Class of 2025 and all three seem destined to be Duke basketball players.

Cameron and Cayden Boozer, the twin sons of Duke legend Carlos Boozer, were the first two players to land offers from the Blue Devils and Cooper Flagg was the next prospect to earn an offer from Scheyer and the 6-foot-8 forward had some interesting comments.

Speaking with On3 recruiting expert Jamie Shaw, Flagg detailed who he models his game after and it had to send flashing red lights into the new office of Jon Scheyer.

“With Duke, there are new players every year, but I think I really started getting into them with Jayson Tatum, Grayson Allen, and those players,” Flagg said.

“I always say I like to model my game after Jayson Tatum. And Grayson Allen too, with how hard he plays, and the grit he plays with.”

Enter Duke.

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It’s still unusual to hear players say that they model their game after Jayson Tatum given his relative youth in the NBA but the former Blue Devil has impacted a generation with his instant success, but prospects never say they also model their game after Grayson Allen.

Allen, the often ridiculed and scrutinized former Blue Devil, has been able to slowly shake the status quo of a ‘Duke villain’ in the NBA but the conversation still follows him whenever he is in the middle of a hard foul or dust-up in a game.

It feels like the quotes from Cooper Flagg are a ‘wink-wink’ to Jon Scheyer and the Duke staff.

Duke basketball recruiting target could be best high school player in country

Jamie Shaw has also hinted at the fact that Cooper Flagg could be the best high school basketball player in the country, regardless of class.

There are no current individual player rankings in the Class of 2025 on either 247Sports or On3 but ESPN lists Flagg as the No. 3 player in the class.

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Flagg was named as the Maine Gatorade Player of the Year as a freshman at Nokomis Regional (Maine) but the coveted prospect is making the jump to national powerhouse Montverde Academy (Fla.) for his sophomore season.

Iowa, Michigan, UCLA, and West Virginia have also offers the eventual five-star recruit.

There is certainly a long way to go in the recruitment of Cooper Flagg but it’s hard to ignore his admiration for Duke and Duke’s admiration for him this early in the process.