Cooper Flagg poised for breakout moment at Los Angeles 2028 Olympics; Los Angeles 2028 to crown next breakout star

Michael Jordan’s golden LA 1984 moment: Who will be basketball’s breakout star at LA28?

Olympic basketball returns to Los Angeles in 2028, 44 years after a 21-year-old Michael Jordan won gold there on the eve of one of the greatest careers in the sport’s history. At LA28, Cooper Flagg could be poised for a breakout moment of his own.

On 10 August 1984, at the Forum in Inglewood, California, a 21-year-old spearheaded the USA men’s basketball team to a 96-65 win over Spain and the gold medal at Los Angeles 1984 .

The youngster, selected third overall in the NBA Draft by the Chicago Bulls just seven weeks earlier, led all players with 20 points and three steals. Less than five months earlier, he’d played his last college game for the University of North Carolina – a Sweet 16 defeat by an Indiana side coached by Bob Knight , the man who’d just guided him to Olympic gold. He was yet to play a minute of professional basketball.

Most of the world still knew him as Michael Jordan . Before long, he’d be immortalised as Air Jordan.

Fans of North American college basketball who had witnessed his career with the Tar Heels - including the iconic title-winning jump shot against Georgetown in 1982 - may not have been shocked by Jordan’s stellar play at the ‘84 Games, where he led his country in scoring (17.1 points per game). But, thrust on to a global stage, the 6ft 6in (1.98m) guard took full advantage, dazzling a worldwide audience with his athleticism and his dunks.

In fact, Jordan had already made national headlines that summer. Through July 1984, that same Olympic team – the last group of amateurs to win Olympic gold for the USA – toured the country playing teams of NBA All-Stars, among them Larry Bird and Kevin McHale , four weeks on from winning the title with Boston, plus Magic Johnson and Isiah Thomas . The college kids won all eight games.

Fast forward to 8 July 2024, and another star-studded USA team is in Las Vegas preparing to defend its Olympic title at Paris 2024 . The roster includes MVP-calibre names such as LeBron James , Stephen Curry and Kevin Durant , with the group sharpening up through scrimmages before heading to France. The squad they face this time are also pros, with one notable exception: 17-year-old Cooper Flagg.

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The Men’s Basketball Gold Medal Game took place on 10

2024 at Bercy Arena, Paris. For the fifth time in a row, United States of America claimed the Gold with an 98:87 win against France.

Flagg, like Jordan in 1984, hasn’t played a minute of NBA basketball. But unlike Jordan, he’s yet to suit up for a college game, either. He’s just out of high school, an incoming Duke freshman already tipped as the No. 1 pick of the 2025 NBA Draft, and the first collegian invited into the senior programme since 2013.

Flagg more than holds his own, hitting several big buckets down the stretch (including a turnaround over Jrue Holiday and a putback dunk over Bam Adebayo ). The Select Team lose by a point, 74-73.

“I definitely just had that feeling that I knew I belonged,” Flagg later told ESPN. “I knew I could be out there.”

He was right. Two years later, Flagg is the NBA’s Rookie of the Year after averaging 21.0 points, 6.7 rebounds and 4.5 assists for the Dallas Mavericks in 2025-26. He also has another two seasons to develop before LA28 arrives, and thanks to modern media, he’s already fairly well known in basketball circles around the world.

And yet, there are still plenty of parallels with Jordan at ‘84. A young star, playing on home soil, ready to announce himself on a world stage. So, can Cooper Flagg have his breakout moment at LA28?

Flagg in action with the USA select team. (Photo by )

The USA went 8-0 at Los Angeles 1984, with Jordan scoring 137 points, 17.1 a game at 54.5 per cent shooting; Chris Mullin was next with 11.6, Patrick Ewing on 11.0. His best came against Spain on 4 August: 24 points on 85.7 per cent shooting.

The numbers tell one side of the story, but they fail to capture the variety – and poise – with which ‘His Airness’ got his points. He was a blur on fast breaks, soaring to the rim to finish with gravity-defying dunks and twisting layups. When a defender was able to cut off his dribble, he’d pull up for a silky-smooth jump shot – a skill that would stay with him long after Father Time had caught up with his athleticism.

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A couple of months after winning Olympic gold, Jordan made his NBA debut for the Bulls, finishing with 16 points, seven assists and six rebounds in a 109-93 win over the Washington Bullets. It was the start of a remarkable rookie season in which he averaged 28.2 points, 6.5 rebounds, 5.9 assists and 2.4 steals across all 82 games, earning an All-Star selection and Rookie of the Year honours.

What followed was one of the most decorated careers in NBA history. Jordan won six championships with Chicago — in 1991, 1992, 1993, 1996, 1997 and 1998 — along with six Finals MVP awards, five regular-season MVPs, 10 scoring titles and the 1987-88 Defensive Player of the Year award. He retired with the highest career scoring average in NBA history at 30.1 points per game, and added a second Olympic gold as part of the Dream Team at Barcelona 1992 .

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Flagg isn’t Jordan – and that’s the point

Nobody’s suggesting Flagg will follow Jordan’s career; in all likelihood, no one ever will. Nor are they the same kind of player.

For starters, Flagg is a very different physical proposition. At the 2025 NBA Draft Combine, he measured 6ft 7in (2.02m), 221lb (100kg), with a 7ft (2.13m) wingspan — bigger and heavier at 19 than Jordan was in his prime. Flagg is built to play forward; Jordan was a guard, and the superior athlete.

The similarities lie more in how they attack the game. Flagg averaged 11.5 drives per game as a rookie, the most in his class, ranked seventh in the NBA for made driving layups and dunks, and converted 65.8 per cent of his attempts in the restricted area. Defensively, his size and mobility allow him to guard across all five positions: opponents shot 34.9 per cent from three and 58.1 per cent inside six feet when he was the primary defender.

There is an early weakness they share, too. Jordan shot just 17.3 per cent from three as a rookie on 0.6 attempts per game. Flagg managed 29.5 per cent overall and 28.2 per cent on catch-and-shoot attempts.

But Flagg’s trajectory is encouraging. His driving volume increased as the season progressed, and in April he averaged 29.2 points while shooting 47.4 per cent from the field and 42.9 per cent from three. He finished the season leading Dallas in points, rebounds, assists and steals — the first rookie to lead his team in all four categories since Jordan himself in 1984-85 — and became the first teenager to score 50 points in an NBA game.

That skill set should translate well to international basketball. FIBA’s greater physicality, absence of a defensive three-second rule and emphasis on switching and rebounding suit many of Flagg’s strengths. Two more NBA seasons offer time to refine his jump shot, with the 2027 FIBA World Cup in Qatar providing a possible stepping-stone to LA28 — much as Anthony Edwards used the 2023 tournament before playing for the USA at Paris 2024.

So why not Anthony Edwards?

Indeed, Edwards, the Minnesota Timberwolves franchise player and four-time All-Star, is the safer bet to become the face of Team USA at LA28. But he has already had his Olympic introduction, winning gold at Paris 2024, and will be 26 when the Games return to Los Angeles.

Flagg will be 21 — the same age Jordan was at the Forum — with two more NBA seasons behind him and a home crowd in front of him.

Yet while Jordan went to Los Angeles with nothing proven as a professional, Flagg could arrive at the Games already an established star. In that sense, LA28 wouldn’t launch his career, so much as add to one that’s well underway.

Picture by Porter Binks-USA TODAY Sports

14 - 30 July 2028

LA 2028 | Olympic Games | USA