Duke fans have had the unbelievable luxury of cheering for back-to-back generational freshmen in Durham, both of whom will end up as National Player of the Year award winners. Cooper Flagg won the Wooden Award last year, and Cameron Boozer is just waiting for the hardware to ship.
In another world, Flagg and Boozer could have been college teammates if Flagg hadn't reclassified into the 2024 recruiting class.
And in this world, perhaps they'll end up teammates at the next level.
That's the projection in FanSided's latest 2026 NBA Mock Draft, with the Dallas Mavericks landing the No. 3 pick and using it on Boozer to pair him with Flagg, whom the franchise selected with the No. 1 overall pick last season.
Cameron Boozer and Cooper Flagg is a dream NBA pairing for Duke fans
A Boozer/Flagg pairing in college would have led Duke to perhaps being the greatest college basketball team of all time this season. Even without Flagg, Boozer has led the Blue Devils pretty close to that mark already, at least in terms of the KenPom era.
Pairing the two together in Dallas would immediately lift the Mavericks back into Western Conference contention, particularly with the return next season of former Duke star point guard Kyrie Irving, who has missed this season rehabbing from a torn ACL.
In fact, if the Mavericks drafted Boozer, their starting five next season could be 4/5ths former Duke players.
Iriving
(insert 2 guard here)
Flagg
Boozer
Dereck Lively
Perhaps the Mavericks could then acquire someone like Grayson Allen or Luke Kennard in the offseason and just roll out an all-Duke starting five in 2026-27.
There's currently a race to the bottom in the NBA as teams try to position themselves in what appears to be one of the strongest draft classes in recent memory. Right now, the Mavericks are 6th in lottery odds, so they'll need some ping-pong ball luck in order to move up and have a shot at drafting Boozer.