The Duke Blue Devils have been the lion of the ACC jungle for years, even after the passing of the torch from head coach Mike Krzyzewski to Jon Scheyer. This past season, Duke boasted a 35-4 record, making a run at the Final Four, where they lost to Houston. Their leader and best player, Cooper Flagg, declared for the draft recently and is expected to be the No. 1 overall pick. Following in his footsteps, many of his teammates went all in on the NBA draft.
Kon Knueppel, Khaman Malauch, and Tyrese Proctor are the Duke players who are going to level up in the following season. While Knueppel and Maluach are projected as lottery picks due to their standout freshman seasons, Proctor’s draft stock is less certain, with ESPN’s Jonathan Givony projecting him as a late first-round to early second-round pick in the 2025 NBA Draft.
He was a bit in and out throughout the offseason but eventually decided to go for it. “It’s time for him to chase that NBA dream,” Jon Scheyer said.
As everyone knows, going to the draft is always a tricky decision, as nowadays you can earn even more money in college basketball in some cases. It could give you some more time to prepare for the step up. It adds more pressure on the draft. This CBS broadcaster is not sure if Proctor took the correct decision of taking that step up at this time.
Gary Parrish said on the CBS Sports College Basketball channel, “It’s not obvious to me that this is the smartest decision he could make. He is probably not going to be picked in the first round. I do think he…he will be picked in the second round. But that gets real shaky. You know. You could go 34th or 53rd and then those aren’t guaranteed contracts. But yes, he would be given one because all NBA franchises are looking for cheap labor now.So he would get a guaranteed contract coming out of the second round. He would be fine.”
When you are someone like Cooper Flagg, who is absolutely guaranteed to go in the top three picks at the draft, there is no doubt you want to be done with college as soon as possible. In the case of Proctor, his future is not so clear; he had two choices: to continue as the talented guard at the college level or to be mixed in the crowd at the NBA. It’s not like he will not be picked; he will, but the money remains uncertain.
Parrish doubts whether he will be outearning college players next season, as he said ,“But are we 100% sure he would make more money professionally next season than he could have playing college basketball?”
According to Sportico’s analysis of rookie contracts, second-round picks don’t have salary caps. These players can sign for the league minimum of $1,276,599 for the next season or be designated as two-way players.
Proctor, with his 6-foot-6 frame and 41.1% three-point shooting, could attract a deal above the minimum, but two-way contracts—paying around $560,000 to $600,000 and allowing up to 50 NBA games—remain a possibility, offering less stability than Duke’s NIL opportunities.
The New York Knicks have the record for the most money given to a second-round pick. It was Tyler Kolek last year. Kolek’s contract with New York will make him $6.6 million guaranteed. Cooper Flagg, the top NIL earner last year, got approximately $5.9 million in just his one year at Duke itself. There is a high possibility Tyrese might have earned more in college than in the NBA.
Had Proctor stayed at Duke, he could have leveraged his role on a high-profile team to secure an NIL deal potentially worth around $500,000 to $1 million, especially after helping Duke shoot 13-for-16 from three-point range across the first two rounds of the 2025 NCAA Tournament.
But money is not everything. The dream of making it to the NBA is what all basketball players think of right from the time they hold a ball. Maybe it was an innate feeling for him that he should take that step despite the compromises with regard to money. And it’s not like he will be paid peanuts in the NBA; he will earn millions, just fewer millions for the first few years, and then who knows what might happen. On the other hand, Flagg will earn a whopping $62.7 million over four years as the first draft pick. He is expected to be the face of the league in the coming years and end many careers on the court but did you know? The first career he ended was his own mother’s.
When Flagg’s Mother suffered a serious injury While Playing against her Son
“It was an incredible year, probably the best year of my life,” Cooper Flagg said while departing the Blue Devils for the NBA, where he is almost the confirmed No. 1 draft pick. Flagg was a superstar right from his school days, as “I don’t know if we’ve ever had a 17-year-old with as much attention around him,” coach Jon Scheyer had said in a September 2024 media availability. He had that aura ever since he picked up the ball, and it probably runs in his blood.
Cooper and Kelly Flagg, his mother, used to play a regular one-on-one game in their driveway ever since he was 10. She boasts in the interview with CBA that Cooper never beat her but in their last game, he managed to injure her by accident. “We used to have some battles in the driveway, and he has never beat me,” Kelly said. “We were playing in the driveway, our last game ever. I did an up fake, and I felt something in my knee. I tore my meniscus.”
These battles against his mom, who was significantly stronger than him at the time, will certainly be of help in the NBA, as he will face players who will be taller, more intelligent and stronger. Meanwhile, Kelly will have the privilege of watching her son go against the world’s best in the NBA.
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