Flagg Day

How cool was that?

Even though it's been a foregone conclusion that Cooper would go #1 for a looooong time, it was still so cool to see it happen as the culmination of a journey that started in Newport. But it's not just Newport. Is there anyone else in the NBA who has an entire state behind them regardless of what team he's playing for?

And there's every reason to believe the feeling is mutual.

He was originally scheduled to spend the weeks leading up to Wednesday night’s draft in L.A., where he could have been running through CAA workouts with fellow lottery picks and grabbing dinners at Nobu. But Maine called to him.

“It was his idea to come back here,” says MacKenzie. “Coop says, ‘Matt, what do you think about maybe going back to Maine next week? I want to watch my old high school classmates graduate from Nokomis.’”

And because that article is by the great Kirk Goldsberry, it includes lines like this:

The scrimmages gave the NBA world its first chance to see the kid from Maine play against elite NBA talent—it was like the South Portland game three years earlier, but instead of J.P. Estrella, Flagg was now playing against Anthony Davis. 

There's been no shortage of coverage and a million different things I could share here. It's just been so cool to watch.

However, there is one important question:

Also watching Cooper and Kelly playfully argue over who won their last head-to-head battle was adorable.

You love to see it.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Maine Basketball Rankings (@mainebasketballrankings)

Even the Governor got involved and made it official.

Sadly, we did not all get the day off.

The Mavericks have already announced that Cooper will wear #32, just like he did at Nokomis. You can already buy the jersey.

If you'd like some official Flagg Day swag, you can buy some.

It ain't cheap.

As for the Celtics, they surprised some people by picking Hugo Gonzalez out of Spain.

He's 19 and seems fun. Word is the Celtics don't plan on making this a draft and stash and will bring him over immediately.

If you've been following the NBA, you've probably seen the flurry of Celtics trades, dealing out Jrue Holiday and Kristaps Porzingis to get out of the second apron and shed something like $200 million in luxury tax money– something that became essential when Tatum went down with the achilles injury.

It's sad to see Holiday and KP go, but it was necessary because of the new CBA and it hurts a lot less with the memories of last year's title run.

So it goes.

Around the time of the Tatum injury, I recorded a podcast with local Celtics expert Jon Duke.

The plan is to have more podcasts soon-ish. This spring has been hectic.

Speaking of podcasts, Noble AD Aaron Moore has started a podcast called "The AD's Office". Check it out!

Saturday with my hometown Medomak Valley Panthers in the Softball B Title game, I headed up to Orono for the Baseball/Softball title game.

The Ellsworth/Greely game had a comeback for the ages.

Some context here: Brady King threw a dazzling 6.2 innings, but was forced to leave the game one out from a title with a 5-1 lead because of his pitch count. The reliever got Greely down to their final strike and then it all fell apart. The Rangers scored 5 runs, including the final one when a runner got caught in a rundown between 1st and 2nd and the runner on 2nd went all the way around and scored. Just a gut-wrenching loss for Ellsworth.

It does raise the question: should the pitch count rule be the same for the last game of the season? There's no next game. We of course don't want a kid throwing 140 pitches, but maybe they can finish the inning? Maybe bump the number up a little for the title game? Because if King could have faced one more batter, Ellsworth might have won it all.

One of the surprising stats of the weekend was that Medomak Valley had not won a state title in a sport that uses Heal Points (or Crabtree) in 30 years, the last title coming when Alice Bishop led the softball team to a 1-0 win in the Class A title game in 1995.

This year's team has their own ace pitcher--sophomore Sidney Nicholls. Nicholls had been putting up big numbers all year--she had a 20K no-hitter earlier in the season--but really caught people's attention when she 1-hit a York team that led the state in scoring in the Regional Final.

Hermon threatened early, getting a leadoff double in the 2nd inning, but Nicholls locked in and struck out the next 6 hitters. We were scoreless until the Panthers got a leadoff triple in the 5th and cashed that in. Hermon nearly tied it, but Nicholls shut the door and Medomak Valley claimed their first title in 30 years.

30 years!