"Dumbest NIL story I've ever seen": Analyst calls out Cooper Flagg's reported $28,000,000 deal, compares Duke star to Caitlin Clark's WNBA contract

Duke Blue Devils forward Cooper Flagg is looking forward to this year's NBA Draft as the projected No. 1 pick. Throughout the 2024-25 campaign, Flagg was considered as the consensus top pick and he will likely get selected by the Dallas Mavericks, the team that got the first selection from the draft lottery on May 12.

During a Youtube video of his podcast on Sunday, June 1, college basketball analyst Aaron Torres called out Flagg's reported $28 million deal that surfaced earlier in the month. Torres made his feelings known, saying that there is a lot of context needed to justify the report.

"I'm here to tell you, it is the dumbest NIL story that I've ever seen. It's not factually, it's sort of factually correct, but not really factually correct. But, I couldn't believe people were like, 'Oh, did you see this story? This is crazy.' Yeah, it's crazy because there's no context and the context means everything, okay?," Torres shared. (17:35)

Torres doubled down on Flagg's reported deal lacking context by comparing it to former Iowa Hawkeyes star and WNBA standout Caitlin Clark's contract, which she signed after she graduated from college.

"So, first of all, before I even get into what actually happened, let's just backtrack a little bit because here's what you need to know about this story, big picture. Let's just pretend where there is a scenario this Cooper Flagg thing, it could be real. I went ahead and looked it up because okay, what are actually realistic NIL numbers for college athletes?," he explained. (48:00)

"Well, I bring it up because how about this, went back and looked it up. Caitlin Clark, when she left college, signed a $28 million dollar, eight-year deal with Nike. This is after college, Caitlin Clark signed for three and a half million dollars per year. Great money, I don't know if I'll ever sign a contract for three and a half million dollars a year, but it ain't 28 million," Torres added.

In his one-and-done stint with coach Jon Scheyer's Blue Devils, the Newport, Maine, native led the team in the five major statistical categories with averages of 19.2 points, 7.5 rebounds, 4.2 assists, 1.4 steals and 1.4 blocks per contest.

Aaron Torres explains the context behind Cooper Flagg's reported $28 million NIL deal

In Aaron Torres' most recent video on Youtube, he goes in depth on Cooper Flagg's NIL deals during his one-and-done season of college basketball. The collegiate hoops analyst detailed the context behind the young sensation's reported NIL deal. Torres then explained that the whole deal doesn't mean he'll earn everything while in Duke.

"It's so easy, and again, it annoyed me that nobody understood the context and the context was very simple. The context was this, the context was contracts signed while you're at Duke, the totality of them mean that you don't make all that money while you're at Duke. What do I mean by that?," Torres said. (49:03)

"If you signed a four-year, $16 million dollar contract, that's 16 million dollars right there. That doesn't mean you got 16 million dollars at Duke, it means you got four million at Duke," he concluded.

Flagg is now heading to the 2025 NBA draft on June 25 in the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, New York. He is coming off a year in which he led the Duke Blue Devils to the NCAA Final Four of this year's March Madness.