Dallas Mavericks forward Cooper Flagg is 19 years old and already one of the best basketball players in the world.
Last week, ESPN analyst Jeremy Lin called him “generational” and said he and Victor Wembanyama could become the NBA’s next great rivalry.
Flagg has also drawn favorable comparisons to LeBron James at the same age, including from Brian Windhorst.
“In my view, Cooper is better at defense than LeBron was at the same age. I don’t even think it’s debatable,” Windhorst said.
“There were defensive plays LeBron made at that age. He certainly would get into passing lanes, he certainly would block shots, he was a defensive playmaker, but Cooper is better defensively, empirically; I don’t think that’s debatable.”
Flagg is averaging 27 points, six rebounds and seven assists during his second season.
A phenom of Flagg’s caliber should be a gift to the NBA as some of its biggest stars, including LeBron James, Steph Curry and Kevin Durant, approach the end of their careers. Instead, his rise may expose the worst instincts in sports.
Cooper Flagg is White. For some members of the basketball community, that is a problem. Former NBA player Charlie Villanueva is one of them.
Villanueva discussed Flagg’s rising stardom on the “To The Baha” podcast last week. According to Villanueva, Flagg cannot become the face of the NBA because of his skin color.
“This might sound crazy, but I don’t think in 2026 a White dude could be, I’m gonna be real, could be the face of the league, if I’m being honest,” Villanueva said. “Because it’s a Black league, right?”
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He then argued that a White player cannot become the best player in the NBA.
“When is the last time we’ve seen a White man be the face of the league? Don’t say Larry Bird, they had to pair him up with Magic,” Villanueva said. “When was the last time a White man was single-handedly the best player in the league?”
That talking point was predictable. OutKick predicted it days after Flagg became the first overall pick out of Duke last season.
For the past three to four years, several former Black players comfortably expressed belittling views of White players.
The hysteria surrounding Caitlin Clark began with the claim that her popularity and stardom resulted from “White privilege.” Black players have called Luka Doncic a “bitch ass white boy” on the court. ESPN analyst Kendrick Perkins falsely accused NBA MVP voters of favoring Nikola Jokic because he is white, likely costing him the award in 2023.
More recently, Stephen A. Smith claimed a team could not win a championship built around white players. Former broadcaster Mark Jones has posted several bigoted messages about Jokic. Gilbert Arenas has joked about exiling white players from the league.
ESPN has published several articles framing Jokic, Clark, and Doncic as “great white hopes,” despite the evidence to the contrary.
The pattern is obvious. Anti-white bigotry has become accepted and, at times, rewarded in public discourse. It has been normalized since 2020.
Notice Villanueva’s wording: The NBA is “a Black league, right?”
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That view echoes comments from Arenas and others who refer to the NBA as “our” league. These Black players appear territorial about the sport and seem threatened when white players succeed.
For context, consider what activist and social media influencer Dr. Umar Johnson said about Eminem in 2023. Johnson claimed Eminem should be excluded from the conversation about the greatest rappers of all time because of his skin color.
“No non-African can ever be the best of anything African. It’s an insult to the ancestors. It’s an insult to the race and it’s an insult to every black person.”
Johnson then claimed the black community should never have allowed Eminem into hip-hop.
“Eminem has all the privileges of a white male and all the privileges of being in the hip hop community, so we got to be careful about letting non-Africans into our community.”
That is the message Black players send about White basketball players: Basketball is their sport. White people are merely their guests.
Of course, the premise is illogical. Basketball is not a black space. A White man created it. No sport or musical genre belongs to any race in America.
The popularity of both White and Black athletes and entertainers makes that clear. Normal Americans like Eminem for the same reasons they like Tupac, Biggie, or Jay Z. They like Jokic, Clark, Doncic, and Flagg for the same reasons they like LeBron James, Michael Jordan, and Kobe Bryant.
Unfortunately, people with the largest platforms too often promote an isolated worldview in which race determines who deserves admiration, legitimacy, and power.
Flagg could prove particularly polarizing.
The usual suspects tried dismissing Jokic and Doncic as international players. Flagg does not give them that option. He was born in Maine. He attended Duke.
His charismatic personality also gives him marketing potential that Jokic and Doncic lacked.
If Flagg emerges as a true face of the post-LeBron NBA, expect the race idolaters to react accordingly. They will resist him and diminish him with the usual racial buzzwords. They will cast his supporters as racists and sellouts.
Sound familiar?
Of course, it does. It’s the response every great white basketball player now receives.
For Flagg, Villanueva’s comments were just the beginning.