Tag: 2024-25 Duke Basketball Team

ESPN ranks Cooper Flagg as the early No. 1 prospect for the 2025 NBA draft

ESPN’s Jonathan Givony released his early top five for the 2025 NBA draft on Thursday, and future Blue Devil Cooper Flagg sat atop the list.

The 2024 NBA draft hadn’t even fully stopped yet before people started looking to 2025.

Next year’s class is expected to be one of the best in recent memory with franchise-changing players up and down the board. According to ESPN’s Jonathan Givony, however, none are more enticing than [autotag]Cooper Flagg[/autotag].

Givony revealed his early top five prospects for the 2025 cycle on Thursday afternoon, immediately after the conclusion of the 2024 draft, and he put Flagg atop the list. The consensus No. 1 player in the Class of 2024 will begin his collegiate career in Durham later this fall, leading a class of five other top-40 freshmen.

As a 6-foot-9 forward with eye-popping athleticism, Flagg is viewed as a class-defining athlete who dominates on the defensive end. The word ‘generational’ keeps getting thrown around for the star who led Montverde Academy to an undefeated season as a senior. He’s the highest-rated Duke commit in program history, according to 247Sports.

Two Rutgers commits, Ace Bailey and Dylan Harper, followed Flagg in second and third.

It isn’t just Flagg’s physicality winning scouts over, however. Duke head coach Jon Scheyer praised him as a competitor with a constant motor, a trait the Blue Devils built their 2024-25 team around.

Duke basketball releases footage from first 2024-25 team scrimmage

The 2024-25 Duke basketball team finally got to practice this week, and the team dropped footage from the first scrimmage late on Friday.

There are still a few months before the Duke basketball team starts playing in front of the Cameron Crazies on campus, but Blue Devils fans can watch the 2024-25 team play basketball now.

The team posted two social media clips to X (the social media platform formerly known as Twitter) before revealing that they posted a six-minute video to their YouTube page.

Fans got their first look at Cooper Flagg, the No. 1 prospect in the country, and the four other healthy freshmen from the Class of 2024 (the team announced Darren Harris would miss time after he underwent surgery to repair a broken hand).

Khaman Maluach, the 7-footer from South Sudan and a presumed lottery pick in the 2025 NBA draft, threw down a lob from returning guard Tyrese Proctor at one point in the video. Tulane transfer guard Sion James, a presumed starter next season, also popped off the screen multiple times, and in-state talent Isaiah Evans nailed a deep jumper.

Flagg also knocked down a triple later in the video on a feed from Proctor.

Duke freshman guard Darren Harris out indefinitely with fractured hand

Incoming Duke basketball freshman Darren Harris is out indefinitely after fracturing non-shooting hand, the team announced on Friday.

Duke’s injury bug has been a well-documented occurrence in the Duke basketball program over the last decade or more. There have been some devastating injuries that some would even believe cost the Blue Devils’ chances at national titles.

Last year’s team experienced some significant injury issues, including injuries to starting point guard Tyrese Proctor, which forced him to miss more than ten games last year. Jeremy Roach missed a few games as well. Caleb Foster was lost for the remainder of the season after a stress fracture in his foot was aggravated in the road game against Wake Forest.

Proctor and Foster return as significant pieces for the 2024-25 Duke team that seems ready to go after the team’s first practices. Even with that said, an injury has already impacted this year’s team.

Darren Harris is the first Blue Devil on this year’s team to suffer a significant injury. The program announced that the freshman, one of six 2024 signees for head coach Jon Scheyer, fractured his non-shotting hand at some point over the summer.

This injury would explain Darren Harris’ noticeable absence from the team’s player-specific highlight videos released on social media this week showcasing every scholarship team member.

Harris had surgery on Tuesday, the team said, and he is expected to make a full recovery.

There is no official timetable for his return, but this type of injury typically requires a six-week recovery, meaning that Harris may miss the entire summer. The timeframe will put him on track to pick things back up as the team prepares for the season.

Harris came to Duke as the 2023-24 Gatorade Virginia Player of the Year and finished as the No. 37 player in the country, according to 247Sports. He led his high school, Fairfax (VA) Paul VI, to the national title game, where they faced off against his now-teammate Cooper Flagg and Montverde Academy. They finished with a 33-2 overall record, averaging 17.2 points, 4.5 rebounds, 3.1 assists, and 1.9 steals per game.

With his injury, Duke’s potential rotation log jam somewhat clears up.

It’s hard to imagine early in the season without practice time that Harris will contribute early. Fellow freshmen Isaiah Evans and Kon Knueppel look to fit into reserve roles off the bench, most likely. It also means that the addition of Sion James solidifies him as the team’s third guard for the foreseeable future, assuming Proctor and Foster are starters.

Haris’s potential as a shooter will be missed, but since the injury is not season-ending, Duke is hopeful he can come back and be a contributor at some point.

Duke basketball posts the first pictures of Cooper Flagg and the 2024-25 team practices

Duke basketball shared the first photos of the 2024-25 team practices on Tuesday, letting fans see Cooper Flagg and others in uniform.

Duke basketball fans can taste the 2024-25 season and its arrival.

On Tuesday, Blue Devils fans got their first looks at next season’s team. [autotag]Cooper Flagg[/autotag], the No. 1 prospect in the country, and his future teammates started practicing in Durham, finally getting to play and practice in Duke gear.

In a tweet from the team account, Duke fans can see Patrick Ngongba II, the Paul VI center who made the USA Basketball U18 team earlier this summer, during a team dribbling drill. Another photo of the team huddling up shows [autotag]Sion James[/autotag], the athletic guard from Tulane, and returning junior [autotag]Tyrese Proctor[/autotag] among the players putting their hands in.

Other photos shared show Flagg and classmate [autotag]Isaiah Evans[/autotag], a two-time North Carolina Mr. Basketball honoree, working through drills. [autotag]Khaman Maluach[/autotag], the South Sudanese 7-footer from NBA Academy Africa, also stopped through in Durham before he heads to the Olympics.

Between Duke’s hyped freshman class, which features six top-40 prospects, and four incoming transfers, the Blue Devils enter the 2024-25 season as one of the national championship favorites.

Flagg and his future teammates already spent some time on campus earlier this month for the K Academy.