It’s pretty much understood now that part of the Cooper and Ace Flagg story is that being from lightly populated Maine, they had to spend a lot of time driving down to AAU events across New England, and during those long road trips, their parents Kelly and Ralph fed them a steady diet of the 1986 Boston Celtics, arguably the greatest team in NBA history.
His mom said this about the influence of the Celtics on her boys: “I think that as Mainers, good Mainers, we were brought up on the Boston Celtics.
And our era was the Bird-Parish-McHale age group. In my opinion, that’s the best brand of basketball that’s ever been played as far as the purity of the game…It’s been documented that Cooper watched an awful lot of Larry Bird film and tape growing up, and I think that’s the way that those guys played — they always made the right play, made the right passes, and played a true brand of team basketball. So I think that’s part of what we grew up on, which then meant that’s what they grew up on.”
You can really see the influence in Cooper’s game. He just does whatever his team needs and is happiest about winning.
But what about Ace? He’s been overshadowed by Cooper’s dazzling ascent, but he’s been raised on the same basketball diet.
We’ll find out soon. Ace is a freshman at Maine, where his coach, Chris Markwood, is pretty jazzed about his potential: “He’s an everyday guy. So everybody’s going to love him. He’s just a hardworking kid, tough as nails. And gonna do some great things here, I’m excited to see where things go.”
Ace says he prides himself on doing the dirty work, so he’s going to get minutes. We’re really curious to see how he develops.
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