Cooper Flagg was the undisputed star of the show in Newport on Wednesday night as his hometown watched him become the first Maine basketball player to ever be taken first overall in the NBA draft.
And Flagg got an assist from New Balance, the footwear and apparel company that he signed a significant endorsement deal with last year. New Balance, which has a production facility not far from Newport in Skowhegan, hosted a draft night watch party at Nokomis Regional High School where Flagg helped bring home a state championship in 2022.
Local students were treated to New Balance swag and a short thank you message from Flagg as they watched him enter the NBA as a Dallas Maverick. Several Maine-based employees of the company were also on hand to celebrate the historic moment — and celebrate the strong ties between the superstar and company.
“It’s really a big deal, especially where he’s from Maine, and born and raised here,” said New Balance worker Eddie Cabassa. “It meshes, you know what I mean.”
New Balance had already unofficially declared Wednesday to be “Flagg Day” and worked with the Maine state government to secure an official proclamation making it “Cooper Flagg Day” in the Pine Tree State.
“It’s incredible,” said Peter Martell, New Balance’s senior facilities manager for the state of Maine. He also cited other New Balance partners like tennis star Coco Gauff.
“It fits the same mold,” Martell said. “New Balance is recognizing the young, superstar athletes and bringing them to New Balance. They share the same type of values.”
Cabassa makes shoes for New Balance — lifestyle rather than basketball shoes — and he’s also a basketball fan and has great appreciation for the unprecedented heights that Flagg has reached.
“And it’s awesome for the younger generation coming up to see somebody from Maine actually make it and do big things,” he said. “It’s pretty cool, honestly.”
Members of that younger generation were also enjoying the moment Wednesday night, and have already been drawing plenty of inspiration from Flagg. Krew Wentworth, 9, of Plymouth said he tries to block shots like Flagg does, and has even borrowed one of Flagg’s signature moves.
“He got a block in a game last year and did the Cooper flex,” Krew’s father, Kyle Wentworth, said Wednesday night.
The young player from Plymouth isn’t the only one in Maine borrowing that now-signature flex celebration. Martell was seen replicating the same move after Flagg’s name was called to start the draft.
The longtime New Balance employee’s tenure with the company is 18 years, the same as Flagg’s age, and Martell said he “never could imagine” the dream-like scenario that played out Wednesday night.
As a testament to the small-town nature of Maine, Martell had actually met Flagg’s father, Ralph Flagg, 30-some years ago in a chance encounter at a Chicago restaurant — while that year’s NBA draft was happening, Martell said.
Decades later, Cooper Flagg’s accomplishments have become regular workplace fodder for Martell and his coworkers. He said that Flagg’s college games at Duke University would often be the talk of the cafeteria or break room the next day.
“There certainly is a lot of pride,” Martell added.
A Thursday story from The Athletic dove into how New Balance leaned into the home state connection in its successful pitch to sign Flagg amid a flurry of other potential shoe and clothing deals.
That included a frank directive from Chris Davis, New Balance’s global brand president and chief marketing officer, to the company’s global sports marketing director, Naveen Lokesh, in December 2023, when Davis showed Lokesh a magazine with Flagg on the cover.
“Go get him,” Davis said, according to The Athletic.
And Lokesh delivered, by leaning into Flagg’s Maine roots. The company’s closing argument in its pitch to Flagg and his team was a video that included workers at the Skowhegan facility talking about their pride in Flagg being from Maine. The video ended with a shot of custom-made New Balance shoes with “FLAGG” stitched on them.
“It was pretty cool to see that video and the Maine shoes and some familiar faces,” Flagg told The Athletic. “That meeting, going through their plans and kind of the future they saw for me, it just aligned really well with the future that I saw for myself.”
That future is now playing out in real time. Flagg is heading to the NBA, New Balance is helping to celebrate his historic achievement and the Skowhegan workers are continuing to show that same sense of pride for a Maine kid who has done the impossible.