{"id":147181,"date":"2025-09-16T10:25:16","date_gmt":"2025-09-16T10:25:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/147181\/"},"modified":"2025-09-16T10:25:16","modified_gmt":"2025-09-16T10:25:16","slug":"new-england-basketball-the-justice","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/147181\/","title":{"rendered":"New England basketball | The Justice"},"content":{"rendered":"

All six states of New England struggle to produce talented and successful players for the National Basketball Association. Although New England has a great history of basketball with the Boston Celtics,a large population of basketball fans and a general population of 15 million people, there are still only eight active players in the NBA from New England.<\/a> The state of Washington alone has nine active players<\/a> compared to a population of 7.9 million.<\/p>\n

While basketball may not be New England\u2019s strong suit, there are players who are on their way to the NBA. The most obvious example is Cooper Flagg<\/a>, who the Dallas Mavericks selected first overall in the 2025 NBA draft. He was picked this high for one main reason \u2014 he doesn\u2019t make mistakes. Flagg processes the game incredibly quickly and accurately, and it’s nearly impossible to bait him into doing what you want him to do. Combine that with his 6\u20199\u201d stature and extraordinary athletic ability, and you have a generational talent.<\/p>\n

Flagg is from Newport, Maine, which is closer to the Canadian border than it is to Boston. Flagg grew up there and went to a regional high school for his freshman year of high school before transferring to Montverde Academy in Florida to fully commit to basketball. He hasn\u2019t forgotten his roots, though. For example, Flagg signed a shoe deal with New Balance<\/a>, inspired by a New Balance manufacturing plant near his hometown. Flagg told the Entertainment and Sports Programming Network in an interview, “The connection with New Balance as a family company and a company with Maine roots means a lot to me.”<\/a><\/p>\n

The next biggest name is AJ Dybantsa<\/a> from Brockton, Massachusetts. He went to Saint Sebastian\u2019s School in Needham for his first two years of high school before transferring to prep schools in the southwest. He\u2019ll be playing for Brigham Young University this season after receiving the most lucrative Name, Image and Likeness deal from a school any player has ever received<\/a> of at least $5 million. Dybantsa and Flagg are each tall, athletic forwards, but Dybantsa is nearly unstoppable. He\u2019s a matchup nightmare \u2014 if you have a player that\u2019s just as fast as Dybantsa trying to defend him, Dybantsa will be able to use his height to get a shot up anyway. If you get someone who is as big as he is to guard him, 99 times out of 100, Dybantsa will just outrun them.<\/p>\n

The Boston area is about one million times better for gaining momentum as a basketball prospect compared to Newport, Maine, but it\u2019s still a rarity to see someone this dominant from the area. Looking back, the best player to ever come out of New England is probably Bill Laimbeer, center for the \u201cBad Boys\u201d Pistons in the 1990s. Even then, Laimbeer mostly grew up near Chicago, Illinois<\/a>. Other than him, the only other all-star born in the region is the extremely underrated Dana Barros.\u00a0<\/p>\n

If you\u2019ve ever played a youth sport before, it\u2019s possible that your coaches told you that \u201ciron sharpens iron,\u201d meaning that playing against evenly matched competition will make you better. While there is something to be said about pressuring seven-year-olds about their future as athletes, I think it\u2019s incredibly applicable here. If you\u2019re exclusively playing weak competition, you aren\u2019t getting much better or being forced to improve your skills to win. If you\u2019re getting demolished every single game, you\u2019re not able to make any progress. Flagg touched on this on draft night by referencing a quote from his mom: \u201cIf you\u2019re the best player in the gym, it\u2019s time to find a new gym.\u201d<\/a> Most of the top youth basketball circuits are outside of the northeast, so it can be tough to find a new gym right for players like Dybantsa and Flagg. This issue brings up one of the most important aspects of modern recruiting; it\u2019s easier than ever to get noticed. There are statistics websites that keep box scores for high school games<\/a>, scouts are able to be contacted through social media, and most importantly, the basketball world has realized that talent is everywhere.<\/p>\n

The last seven NBA Most Valuable Players are all non-Americans; Serbia\u2019s Nikola Jokic, Canada\u2019s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Cameroon\u2019s Joel Embiid, and Greece\u2019s Giannis Antetokounmpo. Just this year, the Los Angeles Clippers drafted a player who was born in a village in Switzerland<\/a> that has 200 people in it. The San Antonio Spurs have a British-Polish-American player who was born in the panhandle of Oklahoma.<\/a> A player who was born on the Canary Islands<\/a> just signed a $52.5 million extension<\/a> with the Memphis Grizzlies. This isn\u2019t even mentioning how the college transfer portal has benefitted players who show that they can compete at a higher level. In the 2025 draft, the Indiana Pacers selected Taelon Peter,<\/a> who had formerly played three years at Division II Arkansas Tech, whose mascot is the \u201cWonder Boys.\u201d If you are good enough, they will find you.<\/p>\n

Flagg will have his NBA debut in October playing alongside Anthony Davis. AJ Dybantsa has been in Utah getting ready to play for what is expected to be one of the most exciting teams in all of college sports. All of a sudden, It\u2019s not a question of when we\u2019ll get our next New England-born star, it\u2019s who it will be.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"All six states of New England struggle to produce talented and successful players for the National Basketball Association.…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":147182,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-147181","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-basketball","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-basketball","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147181","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=147181"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/147181\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/147182"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=147181"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=147181"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=147181"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}