The first round of the 2025 NBA Draft kicks off Wednesday night at Barclays Center, with Duke star Cooper Flagg expected to be taken first overall by the Dallas Mavericks—that is, if they can find him.
The pre-draft coverage team at SportsCenter encountered a slightly embarrassing production blunder when the show's anchor Elle Duncan pointed out to viewers at home that Flagg was posing for pictures on the red carpet. The only problem? It was not, in fact, Cooper Flagg.
"Welcome back to SportsCenter, you're looking at Cooper Flagg and in just over an hour from now—" Duncan said after a commercial break as the camera panned upward on a draft prospect. "That is not Cooper Flagg at all, actually. That is quite famously Ace Bailey."
The camera then switched to a different prospect, presumably the real Cooper Flagg. But alas, Duncan was bamboozled again—it was Rutgers guard Dylan Harper.
"There's Cooper Flagg! I was gonna say, a lot of—no, that's not him either. That's not Cooper Flagg either."
That is most certainly not Cooper Flagg. pic.twitter.com/zGUP0WChko
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) June 25, 2025
A big oops for the camera crew working the event—you just know someone's about to get a stern talking-to based on Duncan's raised voice at the end of the clip. Hopefully ESPN gets it all sorted out by the time Flagg takes the stage later tonight.
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This article was originally published on www.si.com as ESPN Reporter Had a Wild Time Trying to Find Cooper Flagg at 2025 NBA Draft.
