Duke Basketball appears to have returned to their glory days this season, led by Freshman #1 overall recruit Cooper Flagg. The heavy favorite for the #1 overall selection in June's NBA draft leads every major statistical category for the Blue Devils this season (Points, rebounds, assists, blocks, steals) and has propelled them to a 14-2 record to start the 2024-25 season.
Coming in to his freshman and likely only year, expectations for Flagg were sky high, even comparative to top recruits. However, the past 6 years of years of #1 recruits only truly has 1 player that has made a major impact in both the NBA and College. Take a look.
2023 - Isaiah Collier
2022 - Derrick Lively II
2021 - Chet Holmgren
2019 - James Wiseman
2018 - RJ Barrett
2017 - Marvin Bagley
For some of the players on this list, it is certainly too early too tell, but many have been written off as busts. 2 in particular -- James Wiseman and Marvin Bagley -- had fans hopes up when they were selected 0nly for them to be traded just a few years into their careers. Each of these 5 who have already entered the NBA are still getting minutes, just different amounts and are playing at different levels. Chet Holmgren, who was productive with Gonzaga and has become a defensive and rebounding machine for the OKC Thunder in the NBA, has a clearly carved out identity for the rest of his career.
Derrick Lively II represents a different brand of recruit that has also found some success in his so-far short lived career. Lively also went in to his freshman year of college with likely unrealistic expectations, but severely underperformed for Duke (a team that has 4 of the past 7 #1 recruits). There was slight improvement throughout the year, even as he move to the bench, but he was still not playing anywhere near where people expected him to. Despite all of his struggles, Lively decided to enter the NBA draft after 1 year in college. He proceeded to go 12th overall to the Dallas Mavericks, and has become a key part of their team and has started in 24 of the 31 games he's played in so far. He is a perfect example that you don't need to be great in college to contribute in the NBA.
James Wiseman's career trajectory should be a warning sign for NBA teams. Wiseman played just 3 games at Memphis and decided to declare for the 2020 NBA draft, where he went #2 overall to the Golden State Warriors. He has grappled with injuries so far throughout his young NBA career, just as he did in college, and has not been a major impact even when on the floor. After missing the entirety of his second year, Wiseman was traded to the Detroit Pistons in the middle of the 2022-23 season, and has now made his way over to Indiana playing for the Pacers, although he got injured in the first quarter of his first game this year and is expected to miss the entirety of the season. Many teams have looked past injuries that top prospects suffered in college and had their risk pay off, so I don't totally blame Golden State for taking a chance. My issue is that he had such a small sample size in his college career that I have to imagine gathering a scouting report was hard, so even if he was #1 on their big board, the Warriors should've gone with their #2 (who, ironically was likely LaMelo Ball, who has had his fair share of injury struggles in his career).
Our most recent top recruit, Isaiah Collier, had a fairly successful season at USC. Despite an injury that likely tanked his stock, he decided to enter the 2024 NBA Draft. Collier went 29th overall to the Jazz. He has managed to get extensive minutes (for a rookie) so far this year due to a weak Utah roster, but has made minimal impact with that time. Collier has 4.7 points on 35% shooting and 19.6% from 3 on 19.7 minutes per game. This is a situation where I truly think Collier could have used another year in college to fine tune skills such as shot selection and even shot making. Still, it's only his first year and there is still plenty of growth. He is 20 years old and is just getting acclimated into the league.
A lot of the problems faced by struggling recruits on this list represent more of a problem with college basketball culture as a whole. Every single player on this list was a one and done. Many of which would have absolutely benefited from that second, sometimes even 3rd year of development. Cooper Flagg, however, should be the exact mold for a one and done. He has been significantly better at the college level than any other player on this list, and is probably both good and bad for future top recruits. Flagg has correctly reset the course of these recruits, showing that they do have the ability to live up to the hype. However, this season could set an unfairly high standard that will be nearly impossible for #1 recruits to live up to. He may be having a record setting season, but it could have a ripple effect that sets back top players.
Eli Knight
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