The tiny town and legendary 1980s NBA Boston Celtics team that built Cooper Flagg - ESPN

IN THE FOURTH row of bleachers inside a gymnasium on the UNLV campus, Duke men's basketball officials — including coach Jon Scheyer — are struggling to contain their excitement.

In the row just ahead of them, Kelly and Ralph Flagg look on in awe as their 17-year-old son Cooper is dominating a scrimmage against the best basketball players in the world.

It's July 8, and 6-foot-9 Cooper Flagg is playing for the USA Select Team, a squad of mostly NBA players who, in the spirit of tradition, serve as a training camp appetizer for Team USA before the Olympics. But Flagg is not an NBA player. He is the first collegiate player in a decade to join the select team, but he isn't a collegiate player either — not yet anyway.

Flagg is four months removed from leading the Florida-based Montverde Academy boys' basketball team to its eighth national championship, and he is four months away from his debut at Duke University. In this interregnum, Flagg is five years younger than Team USA's youngest player, Minnesota star guard Anthony Edwards, and he is four years younger than LeBron James' NBA career (21). And he is playing against them both, along with Stephen Curry, Anthony Davis and a who's who of NBA stars who, a month later, will claim a gold medal at the Paris Olympics.

For now, Team USA is caught in the fourth quarter of a neck-and-neck scrimmage against the select team, led by Flagg, who, quite simply, is putting on a show. He drills a corner 3 against a closing Davis, who hangs his head in frustration. He sinks a turnaround jumper over Boston's Jrue Holiday, one of the game's best defenders. He crosses over Davis and swishes a side-step 3-pointer from the right wing, igniting a sequence that's about to burn lava-hot across social