Cooper Flagg suffered a scary injury during the Duke Blue Devils' 78–70 ACC tournament quarterfinal win over the Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets on Thursday.Flagg needed help off the floor and took a wheelchair to get x-rays, but soon returned to the bench with a heavily taped ankle and watched the rest of the game with his teammates.
The conversation quickly shifted to whether or not Flagg should play again this season if he's able to. On Friday morning's episode of host Mike Greenberg asked ESPN's college basketball analyst Seth Greenberg why Flagg would return since a football player would likely shut it down. Greenberg was not having anything to do with the football comps.
“That’s not happening," Greenberg said. "That’s not the way the kid’s wired. And you want to leave a legacy. If you want to be one of the greatest players in the history of Duke. Alright? This isn’t football. You have to hang that banner. You want to see your number hang in the rafters beside player of the year. This is a team sport and if you look at the relationship, yes, this is an 18-year old. He started the season as a 17-year old. He’s living his dream. This is what he wanted. This is the journey he’s taken with these players. I don’t know about the football situation, but the basketball situation, it’s not a career-ending injury. It’s an injury. And he will deal with it, but I totally disagree with this narrative."
So there you have it. Greenberg expects Flagg to return so that he can try and lead Duke to a national championship to cement his legacy as one of the best players in program history. It all seems so simple.