"O.K., that was different": Cooper Flagg's mom Kelly recalls the moment when she first realized that her son had a gift for basketball 

Cooper Flagg is widely projected to be the No. 1 pick in the 2025 NBA draft after an incredible freshman season at Duke. His rise to stardom has been well documented, but for his family, the first signs of his talent came much earlier. Cooper's mother, Kelly Flagg, recently shared a story about the moment she and her husband realized that their son had a rare gift for the game.

On Wednesday, Kelly recalled a first grade scrimmage that made them stop and think.

“On one early possession a loose ball squirted away and was headed out of bounds," Kelly said, via Sports Illustrated. "Cooper, who was seven years old at the time, leaped after it, palming it and saving it to a teammate. He recovered, sprinted the length of the floor, got the ball back, and finished with a layup.

“It was a moment where I think Ralph and I looked at each other, and we were kind of like, ‘O.K., that was different.’ "You don’t see a seven-year-old do stuff like that very often.”

From that moment on, Cooper' career has been on a steep rise. He became one of the most dominant high school players in the country at Montverde Academy in Florida. He helped his win major titles and consistently showed why he was the No. 1 prospect in his class.

His transition to college was seamless. Playing for the Blue Devils, Flagg took over games and averaged 19.2 points, 7.5 rebounds, 4.2 assists, 1.4 steals and 1.4 blocks per game. He regularly made headlines as the most exciting prospect in college basketball.

Flagg also won major national awards, including the Naismith Player of the Year, the Wooden Award and both ACC Player and Rookie of the Year honors.

Former NBA star Brian Scalabrine raves about Cooper Flagg

After his NBA career, Brian Scalabrine began training young players in Boston, and that was how he met Flagg, who was in eighth grade at the time.

Scalabrine trained him and contributed to his game's development. The Boston Celtics broadcaster compared Flagg to LeBron James and Chris Paul.

“He’s a supercomputer,” Scalabrine said on Wednesday, via Sports Illustrated. “Whatever you tell him, he’ll master in 24 hours.

"Just picture that for one second: think about the trajectory of a player that you could tell something one day and he figures it out the next. Chris Paul, LeBron James, those are the guys with minds like that. He’s as smart as any player I’ve ever been around. His basketball IQ is off the charts.”

After the NBA draft, the focus on Flagg will shift to how his game translates to the pro level. Hopes are high given how he well he performed in high school and college.