Sam Vecenie debates shooting ability of Cooper Flagg, AJ Dybantsa

Not every top overall prospect is the same as the next. Different players have different skill sets, and that’s the case with Duke Blue Devils freshman Cooper Flagg and BYU Cougars commit AJ Dybantsa.

Sam Vecenie and Kyle Mann discussed the two prospects on the Game Theory Podcast. There, Mann and Vecenie got into their shooting ability, and Mann interesting noted that he wouldn’t be shocked if Flagg ends up being the better shooter, despite where the two players are now. That prompted Vecenie to agree with him and go on to praise Flagg’s ability to improve himself.

“The Dybantsa comparison is interesting, man,” Vecenie said. “I’m like really thinking through this because I haven’t done this yet… My answer on a lot of this with Cooper, based off of what we’ve seen this year, based on what I know of the intel of the human being, everything like that, is I kind of just don’t put anything past him is the issue. Like, in a vacuum, my answer is probably Dybantsa based on how they’ve looked at similar ages as shooters, but I can’t sit here and tell you for certain that it’s AJ because I just believe in the human being.”

AJ Dybantsa is a five-star recruit and the top overall recruit in the Class of 2025, according to the On3 Industry Ranking. He’s currently committed to play for BYU, and at 6-foot-9 he’s been a dominant high school athlete.

For his part, Cooper Flagg was similarly a five-star recruit and the top-ranked recruit in the Class of 2024. He would choose to attend Duke.

“And this is the ultimate thing with Cooper, right, is the ability to A) he’s like an insane worker, which everybody knows. He’s just this crazy, crazy, monstrous worker. That’s not new information. But, he is a crazy worker that also is very, very, very coachable, and I think has the best compete level. Just, when I talked to Jon Scheyer in the preseason, he was just like straight up what he has brought us on a night-in, night-out practice-by-practice basis is competitiveness. Every single time that dude steps on the court it’s all about competitiveness, it’s all about winning, it’s all about doing the right thing. Those are the guys who are obsessive with basketball and I’m not saying that AJ isn’t when I say this, like I’m not saying anything negative about AJ particularly,” Vecenie said.

“But Cooper is just on a totally different level with all of this stuff from any prospect that I’ve evaluated at the top two or three levels of the draft… He has everything he needs. He has the ability to be an elite athlete that doesn’t need load up steps to be able to jump. He has the ability to react incredibly quickly on the court to everything he does. — he also has the ability to kind of fix his shot mechanics in-season, which is the craziest thing to me. Earlier in the season, his shot was not as far away from his body as what it is now. If you look at the shot now, it is way smoother and way cleaner than what it was even in the early portion of this season a couple of months ago.”

A benefit in the debate between Flagg and Dybantsa that is in Flagg’s favor is that he’s had the opportunity to compete in college already. In 21 games as a freshman, Flagg is averaging 20.0 points, 8.0 rebounds, and 4.2 assists per game. He’s also shooting 48.4 percent from the field and 34.6 percent from three-point range.

For his part, Kyle Mann agreed with Sam Vecenie’s breakdown of the type of player that Cooper Flagg is.

“And you’ll hear coaches say they don’t like to go there with that kind of stuff because you can open a problem, and I think it speaks to how competitive he is. I know we’re really tilling fresh earth here with this that the number one player is the number one player, but I’m with you. I think that’s what’s so special about him is he’s gonna be an elite role player with avenues for improvement that I absolutely would not bet against just because — I threw out a bunch of comps of just guys that just the range of impact always made me think of Chet [Holmgren and [Anthony Davis],” Mann said.

“He’s not, obviously, the same type of player but I just think he’s going to do so many things well and contribute to winning and he’s a culture guy too. So, I think you nailed it. If you just watch his body language, he’s just an insane person. He wants to win and I increasingly, this seems overly simple, but I increasingly just filter guys on that. If I listen to them talk, I’m like he’s bright, he’s competitive, that is just huge. I feel like the threshold, the cost of entry into the NBA, it just keeps going up because the flow of information keeps going up and if you drown in that and you’re not interested in that, you’re going to wash out of the league. Cooper’s just not that type of person. He’s gonna thrive with it.”

This will likely be Flagg’s only college season before he makes the jump to the NBA. Meanwhile, Dybantsa hasn’t even begun his college journey. For years into the future, it’s safe to say these two will be among the best in the game and capable of doing almost anything on the floor.