Ranking top of 2025, 2026 NBA drafts: Would Flagg still be No. 1? - ESPN

After watching Cooper Flagg's impressive NBA adjustment on his way to Rookie of the Year honors this season, it's easy to forget he is still 19 years old.

Rewind a few years, and recall that the Dallas Mavericks star was originally part of the 2025 high school class, going head-to-head for several years against AJ Dybantsa, Cameron Boozer and Darryn Peterson, each of whom is expected to go in the top three in the draft next week. Flagg, who reclassified to graduate high school in 2024, is roughly the same age (or in some cases, younger) than many of the top freshmen in this draft class.

What if Flagg had stuck to his original high school class, played at Duke last season and entered the 2026 draft? How would he stack up vs. a loaded group of prospects? Would he still have gone No. 1?

Yes, this is a tricky exercise in hindsight — especially after he just averaged 21.0 points, 6.7 rebounds and 4.7 assists per game. In my mind, the answer is simple.

For the sake of the exercise — and with early returns in the 2025 draft quite promising — here's a combined ranking on how I would stack up the top five prospects from each class, based on how I rated them coming out of college:

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Rank in 2025 class: No. 1
Current team: Dallas Mavericks

2024-25 college stats: 19.2 PPG, 7.5 RPG, 4.2 APG, 59.3% TS, 14.9 BPM

Knowing what we knew then — and what we know now — Flagg is the clear No. 1 in this group. There were so few holes in his overall profile that the question was always about what level of heights he'd reach, not about whether he would succeed in the NBA. He finished college on a growth trajectory, with good indicators that he'd develop not only as a