Cooper Flagg suffered an ankle injury during Duke’s ACC Tournament game on Thursday, and that left fans making the same joke.
Flagg scored 2 points in 15 minutes during Duke’s 78-70 win over Georgia Tech at the Spectrum Center in Charlotte, N.C. The Blue Devils will play North Carolina in the semifinals of the tournament on Friday, though Flagg has a sprained ankle.
Flagg was the ACC Player of the Year and is viewed as the likely No. 1 pick in the 2025 NBA Draft should he decide to leave Duke after the season. Fans joked after seeing him go down and get carted around in a wheelchair that he would be a perfect fit for the Philadelphia 76ers.
The fans were making references to the Sixers’ injury history with top picks, such as Joel Embiid, Ben Simmons and Markelle Fultz. Embiid missed his entire rookie season due to a broken foot. Simmons ended up missing his rookie season with a broken foot as well. And Fultz had shooting problems as a rookie that were attributed to a shoulder injury.
Embiid was the No. 3 overall pick in 2014, while Simmons (2016) and Fultz (2017) went No. 1 overall in consecutive years.
Philly entered play on Thursday tied for the 5th-best draft lottery odds in the NBA. That would put their chances of landing the top overall pick — and Flagg — at around 10 percent.
