Cooper Flagg is already an NBA star in one respect.
The first overall pick of the 2025 NBA Draft made his Summer League debut on Thursday and, alongside another ratings-driver in Bronny James, drew an average of 955,000 viewers via Nielsen metrics, ESPN announced Friday. That’s the fourth-highest recorded viewership in Summer League history.
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The audience for the Dallas Mavericks-Los Angeles Lakers game reportedly peaked at 1.12 million viewers and represented a 167% increase over last year’s Summer League average.
The three games that saw more viewers than Flagg’s, and the players who drew those eyeballs:
1. Zion Williamson vs. R.J. Barrett in 2019, 1.61 million
2. Victor Wembanyama vs. Brandon Miller in 2023, 1.39 million
3. Lonzo Ball vs. Jayson Tatum in 2017, 1.1 million
4. Cooper Flagg vs. Bronny James in 2025, 955K
It’s worth noting Summer League Nielsen numbers don’t go back very far. For example, LeBron James’ Summer League debut in 2003 was aired on NBA TV, which was not Nielsen-rated at the time.
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Flagg entered the NBA as hyped as any American prospect since James, after a single year at Duke in which he earned consensus National Player of the Year honors. He had an uneven performance on Thursday, posting some nice highlights but going scoreless in the second half with 10 points on 5-of-21 shooting.
The Mavericks won the game 87-85, with Bronny James also going scoreless in the second half of an eight-point performance.
Flagg is scheduled to play his second game on Saturday against No. 2 pick Dylan Harper and the San Antonio Spurs, but he might not be long for Summer League. He has very little to prove in Las Vegas and the Mavericks have made very clear they view him as a key component of a likely playoff team, so they’re not going to play him for the sake of playing him.
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