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Has Cooper Flagg surpassed LeBron James as best teenager in NBA history?
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- Has Cooper Flagg surpassed LeBron James as best teenager in NBA history?
Although his pace has slowed down a bit over his past couple of outings, Cooper Flagg'storrid start to his sophomore campaign was so impressive that it got us thinking about his standing among all-time great teenagers in NBA history.
For starters, the Dallas Mavericks young starlet is one of just two players in NBA history to average at least 21 points, six rebounds and four assists per game before turning 20, joining another all-time great teenager, Luka Doncic, on the list. Of course, that's a little unfair to arguably the league's overall GOAT, LeBron James, who missed that distinction by 0.1 rebounds per game.
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As a teenager in the NBA, James averaged 21.9 points, 5.9 rebounds and 6.2 assists per contest on 43.6 percent shooting from the floor (31.7 percent from three), in comparison to Flagg's 21.3 points, 6.6 rebounds and 4.7 assists averages (on 46.8 percent shooting and 28.5 percent from three).
In our estimation, the ranking of all-time great teens in the NBA comes down to James and Flagg at the top, though, because Doncic only played 57 NBA games before turning 20. Flagg is already at 77 with over a month left until his 20th birthday, while James played 108 such contests. Of course, if we included international accolades, Doncic could be No. 1 here, as he won Euroleague MVP and a Euroleague championship with Real Madrid, and a Eurobasket championship with Slovenia, before the Dallas Mavericks drafted him. (Imagine teams seeing you accomplish all of that before getting to the NBA and still letting you fall to third in your draft class.)
Regardless, we're discussing the best NBA teens here, so Doncic misses the cut. (For those wondering, Victor Wembanyamaonly played 29 games with the San Antonio Spurs before turning 20, though his numbers - 18.9 points, 10.2 rebounds and 3.1 blocks - were quite impressive in their own right.)
Apr 5, 2026; Dallas, Texas, USA; Los Angeles Lakers forward LeBron James (23) and Dallas Mavericks forward Cooper Flagg (32) during the first half at American Airlines Center. Mandatory Credit: Kevin Jairaj-Imagn Images
Flagg and James were both drafted first overall in their draft classes and arrived in the league with loads of hype. Both players, obviously, more than lived up to the immediate expectations, with James and Flagg winning Rookie of the Year off the bat while flashing abilities of future superstars. Obviously, we'll have to wait to see if Flagg gets there, but early signs are extremely promising, as Flagg already owns a variety of youngest-ever-related NBA records.
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Youngest player to score at least 50 points in an NBA game? That was Flagg, who accomplished the feat on April 3, 2026, at 19 years and 103 days old.
Youngest player to score 40? Also Flagg, who pulled that off at 18 years and 359 days old, and actually took the record from James. Flagg also became the first and only 18-year-old to score 40 points in an NBA game that night.
Of course, the pace and scoring of the modern game do come into play here, as scoring in general is way up in the Association over the past few years. For comparison's sake, the best offense in the NBA in 2003-04, James' rookie season, belonged to the Mavericks, and it put up 110.4 points per 100 possessions . The best offense in the NBA thus far this season, belonging to the Los Angeles Lakers , is putting up 121.1 points per 100 possessions .
So that could possibly be considered somewhat of an unfair advantage for Flagg, playing in such a wide-open, fast-paced, spaced-out era of basketball, where getting buckets wasn't as treacherous as it might have been 20 years ago. At the same time, we can just compare Flagg and James' per-100-possession stats in their rookie seasons to see how they stack up against one another, per Basketball-Reference data :
James vs. Flagg per-100 possessions
Although Flagg outpaces James in points per 100 possessions and rebounds per 100 possessions, the advanced stats still favor the now-41-year-old when comparing their rookie season production, with James getting the nod in VORP (2.9 vs. 2.0), BPM (1.7 to 1.4) and Win Shares (5.1 to 3.8).
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So the duo is clearly neck and neck, but James probably still gets the edge over Flagg in teenage NBA production, primarily because his efficiency eclipsed Flagg's. Thus far in his second season, Flagg has a league-average true-shooting percentage of 57.1 percent , a number dragged down by his porous outside shooting. The former Duke standout is down to 21.2 percent from three in his second career campaign, as his catapult-like jumper is surprisingly accurate from midrange but far less so from beyond the arc. James wasn't fully polished when he was playing in the NBA as a 19-year-old rookie, either, but by his second season, the Akron native shot 48.6 percent from the floor and 36.0 percent from three before turning 20.
James also had the edge in team success, though not by much, as the Cleveland Cavaliers won 33 games in James' rookie campaign, while Flagg's Mavs won 26.
It's noteworthy that both players arrived in the NBA able to do a bit of everything, be it score, rebound or assist; although that may have been expected of James, it wasn't as much of Flagg, as the Maine native was thought to be a bit rougher around the edges than James was getting to the NBA. If anything, Flagg has surprised many with his ability, to score off the dribble, hit tough jumpers from the midrange over good defense and create for teammates at the level he has as a teenager, when there was a thought that maybe he'd be more of the slashing defender archetype, like an Andrei Kirilenko, at least early on in his NBA career.
Instead, Flagg has shown star-level potential as an inside scorer, leading many to believe he has an MVP-level ceiling, especially as he continues to sharpen his outside shooting. Given his further-along-than-expected scoring and playmaking, to go with his fantastic cutting and finishing prowess near the arc and his high-effort, versatile and impactful defending on the other end, the sky truly is the limit for Flagg.
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With all that said, who are we taking as far as the best teenager in NBA history: James or Flagg? We might still have to lean toward James, as not only did he have similar stats to Flagg in a much more difficult era for scoring, but he was more efficient, so the advanced stats also favor him, and he was also able to lead Cleveland to the slightest bit more team success in comparison to Flagg's rookie-season Dallas squad that went 26-56.
Then again, Flagg has another 17 games ahead of him before turning 20, so it's not out of the question that we may have to revisit this assessment in a few weeks.
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This article originally appeared on Hoops Hype: Has Cooper Flagg surpassed LeBron James as best teenager in NBA history?
