During an October preseason game, the Dallas Mavericks’ Cooper Flagg (left) and Charlotte Hornets’ Kon Knueppel, former teammates at Duke, were first-time NBA opponents.
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Nobody knew it at the time, but one preseason practice foretold all.
Back in the fall of 2024, before Cooper Flagg and Kon Knueppel emerged as two of the NBA’s brightest young stars — frontrunners to win the league’s Rookie of the Year award — they were freshmen teammates at Duke, two five-star pillars of the Blue Devils’ top-ranked recruiting class.
Flagg, by then, already was nationally known, especially after holding his own alongside LeBron James and Steph Curry at Team USA’s pre-Olympic training camp in Las Vegas.
“The legend of Cooper Flagg,” said Duke general manager Rachel Baker, “superseded him a little bit before he got here.”
Knueppel, on the hand, was … not. He’d earned some summer buzz from NBA scouts cycling through Durham, N.C., to see Flagg, but he was nowhere near where he wound up — as the fourth pick of the 2025 NBA Draft by the Charlotte Hornets.
No surprise, then, that Flagg set the tone for Duke most days in practice. Despite only being 17 years old at the beginning of the Blue Devils’ season, Flagg had the most energy in the gym, his trickle-down competitiveness fueling a team that made the Final Four and became one of college basketball’s best in recent history.
But one preseason practice, which head coach Jon Scheyer and his staff still point to, Flagg didn’t have his best stuff.
The guy who called him out? Knueppel, who didn’t hesitate in telling the future No. 1 pick and national player of the year: Get your head in the game, Cooper Flagg!
“Cooper looked at him, eye to eye, and said, ‘I got you,’” Scheyer remembered, “and Cooper went on to just kill the rest of the day in practice.”
After practice, Scheyer — who won a national championship as a player in 2010 — couldn’t hide his excitement about what had transpired.
“It’s really hard for young players to confront each other, to get after one another,” he said. “Me and Gerald Henderson grew to the point where we’d motherf—er each other once a week. That was a normal thing; you just learn to do that, and that doesn’t happen anymore.”
Which is why Knueppel doing so struck such a chord.
“I remember Jon leaving and being like, ‘This is f—ing awesome’ after Kon told Cooper to get his stuff together,” Baker said. “He was like, ‘This is everything you want in a team.’”
On Thursday, the former Duke stars — and former college roommates — will face each other for the first time in an NBA game when the Dallas Mavericks host the Charlotte Hornets. Flagg, who who leads the Mavericks in scoring, rebounds and assists, is exceptionally well-rounded for someone who will still be a teenager for another 11 months. Knueppel is averaging 18.7 points per game and has been not only one of the most productive 3-point shooters among rookies but in the entire league. His 153 3-point makes are the third-most in the NBA.
“It’s only right, with what they’ve gone through to this point, that it’s going to come down to the two of them (for Rookie of the Year),” Scheyer said. “It’s only right. I think it’s beautiful.”
Cooper Flagg (2) and Kon Knueppel made for a dynamic young tandem for the Duke Blue Devils in their short times with the team.
Not long after Flagg moved onto campus at Duke, he flew to Las Vegas to play for the U.S. Select Team.
Baker accompanied him on that trip, her first real experience around the budding superstar. She realized then — when she used her buddy pass to get Flagg into his first Delta lounge, and later picked up the tab when they ate Chick-fil-A — just how much of a normal kid Flagg really was.
“Maybe one or two people asked him, ‘Are you Cooper Flagg?’” Baker said. “And he kept being like, ‘No, I’m Ace’ (his twin brother who’s a freshman at the University of Maine), which is the most Cooper thing ever.”
Flagg’s performance that week in Las Vegas, when he went toe-to-toe against American basketball’s equivalent of “The Avengers,” raised his profile dramatically. “You can see how bad he wants it,” Phoenix Suns star Devin Booker gushed. Flagg was considered the favorite to be the No. 1 draft pick before ever playing a game at Duke.
As the Blue Devils got off to a 20-2 start, routinely playing on national TV, no one sensed much change in Flagg. He remained grounded — the same youthful spirit who would bring water guns into the cold tub after practice.
Knueppel was similarly down to earth, even as his draft stock soared as the second-leading scorer on one of the most dominant teams in the country.
“The best way to describe it is they’re just old souls,” Baker said. “In a time where everyone’s talking about social media … we had these two throwback old souls show up on campus that didn’t really care about the internet.”
Flagg found comfort binging episodes of the TV show “Suits” and sneaking in nine holes of golf when his schedule allowed. Knueppel, meanwhile, was a sports history buff, whose dorm room walls were decorated with old Sports Illustrated covers, and who listened to episodes of “The Bill Simmons Podcast.”
Scheyer learned about Knueppel’s love for sports history during the recruiting process over a meal alongside Duke associate head coach Chris Carrawell. The three played a game, taking turns naming NBA and NCAA champions in reverse starting in 2023.
For the only time Scheyer can remember, Knueppel beat both of them in a “Stump the Schwab”-esque performance.
“Kon won,” Scheyer said, “because Kon knows everything.”
“(It’s) not even just basketball,” Flagg added. “Football. Baseball. He just knows a lot of ball. He’s definitely a little bit of a guru.”
Flagg, from Newport, Maine, wasn’t much of a football fan, so Knueppel would spend most Sundays on campus in another apartment: that of forward Neal Begovich and center Ryan Young. Knueppel, from Milwaukee, would regularly show up at 8 a.m., plop on the couch and watch NFL games — including his home-state Green Bay Packers — all day long.
While their routines differed, Flagg and Knueppel still had plenty in common. Both grew up in cold-weather places and came from large families where all the children were boys. Flagg, in addition to his twin, has an older brother, Hunter. Kneuppel is the oldest of five boys — all of them with “K” monikers, which Flagg learned in no time flat.
“You’ve got Kon, Kinston, Kash, Kager and Kidman,” Flagg said, rattling them off in a staccato tone.
On the court at Duke, Flagg and Knueppel were natural complements. Flagg was impossible to keep out of the lane and did practically everything well. Knueppel wasn’t as tall or explosive, but he was a lethal shooter who consistently made high-IQ plays learned from years battling in his father’s men’s league back home. Together, they formed one of college basketball’s most potent duos.
Knueppel even proved during the ACC tournament — which Flagg missed most of with a sprained ankle — that he was capable of handling a starring role. Knueppel led Duke to the ACC title, winning tournament MVP honors while averaging 21 points, 5.7 rebounds and 4.7 assists per game.
Nobody cheered harder for him than Flagg on the sideline.
“Their personalities were perfect for each other in terms of their competitiveness, their unselfishness and just how smart they were,” Scheyer said. “Those guys want to ball and want to be with their friends and family. That’s really who they are, and I think that allowed them to just be level-headed the whole way.”
Kon Knueppel (left) and Cooper Flagg, once college roommates and teammates at Duke, became two of the top-five picks in the 2025 NBA Draft.
On the night of the NBA Draft Lottery, Flagg, Knueppel and Duke teammate Khaman Maluach were seated next to each other. When NBA deputy commissioner Mark Tatum announced that the Mavericks had won the No. 1 pick, the mood inside the room was shock and wonderment.
The Mavericks, who three months earlier made the controversial Luka Dončić trade, were essentially being gifted another star. Flagg sounded excited about the chance to play with Kyrie Irving and Anthony Davis, two former No. 1 picks.
But his most animated moment on draft night, by far, came when the Hornets chose Knueppel as the No. 4 pick. Flagg was in the middle of an interview with NBA TV when Knueppel’s selection was announced and shot up from his seat in excitement.
To no surprise, the former roommates remain close. They speak at least once a month — although mostly about their apartments, families and girlfriends, Knueppel said, and not basketball. In October, after Dallas hosted Charlotte in the preseason, Flagg called Knueppel, “a friend for life.”
“We follow each other’s games and see all that stuff,” Knueppel said. “It’s, more so, how’s life?”
As for the Rookie of the Year debate, Knueppel is the more polished scorer right now, while Flagg is the superior defensive player who also owns the edge in rebounding and assists.
But no matter who finishes in second, the people who know Flagg and Knueppel best predict there will be no hard feelings between two of the league’s rising stars.
“You couldn’t find two people that are bigger fans of each other,” Scheyer said. “I think that’s something that can happen when it’s, ‘Well, is it Kon or is it Cooper?’ You’re not going to split those dudes apart, man, because both those guys love each other and what they’ve been through. I think that’s the beautiful thing about it.”
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