Cooper Flagg’s first basketball role model wasn’t LeBron James, Stephen Curry or any other modern-day NBA megastar.
It was a player who retired 14 years before the ballyhooed Duke freshman was even born.
When Flagg and his twin brother, Ace, were in elementary school in his hometown of Newport, Maine, their parents purchased them DVDs chronicling the life and career of Larry Bird. Cooper Flagg would lie on the living room floor watching documentaries on Bird and on his rivalry with Magic Johnson. Or he’d pass time in the back of the family’s Chrysler minivan on the way to practices watching full-game replays over and over from the 1985-86 Celtics season
The purpose, according to Flagg’s parents, was more than just to introduce their sons to a Boston Celtics legend and to one of the franchise’s most beloved championship teams.