ORLANDO, FL — The 29th National Basketball Players’ Association Top 100 Camp wrapped with a marvelous championship game Friday evening in ESPN’s Wide World of Sports Center at Disney World.
Future Montverde (FL) Academy teammates Cooper Flagg and Robert Wright III led the camp’s “Denver Nuggets” club to an 83-80 victory over its Atlanta Hawks counterpart in the final.
The 6-foot-9 Flagg (who transferred to Montverde Academy a year ago after his freshman season at Nokomiss High in New Hampshire) scored 10 points with 10 rebounds, three blocked shots and two assists in the title game.
The championship victory was an enough to nudge him past another Class of 2025 member, 6-9 Jayden Quaintance (Raleigh, NC, Word of God Academy), for the week’s Most Outstanding Player honor.
Quaintance kept his team (6-0 going into the game) ahead or barely behind throughout with a 19-point, 13-rebound and three-blocked shot effort.
Flagg hit 22 of 37 shots from the field over the team’s quarterfinal and semifinal victories earlier Friday, averaging 31 points, 10.5 rebounds and 2.5 blocked shots per game.
Quaintance averaged 18.3 points, 13.3 rebounds, 2.7 assists and 4.3 rebounds in Atlanta’s three Friday games.
The 6-foot Wright (a three-season standout at Philadelphia’s Neumann Goretti before announcing his transfer a week ago) was added to the Denver roster after injuries and departures led Rockets short of bodies for its final two games.
He played for Houston during its camp games Wednesday and Thursday, and in its ninth vs. 10 “showcase” game Friday morning against Phoenix.
Wright, atop my 2024 national point guard ratings, missed 12 of 18 shots from the floor.
But the last of the six he converted, a six-foot floater after he pumped-faked 6-7 Tyran Stokes out of the path of his shot, put Denver up by three points with 26 seconds to go.
The Nuggets’ defenders were able to chase all the Hawks’ jump shooters away from the 3-point arc until Robert Hinton was able to get his hands on a ball and launch a potential tying shot that was well off the mark as the buzzer sounded.
Hinton, a 6-5 senior-to-be for 2023 California State Open Champion Harvard-Westlake, scored 13 points (hitting five of eight shots from the field, with a 3 and a couple of free throws) and grabbed six rebounds in the title game.
His consistency and efficiency over seven games were remarkable, scoring from nine to 16 points in each game for a 12.8 average while shooting .591 from the field.
No Western-based athlete from the 100 or so players in attendance played better than Hinton, who is committed to Harvard University.
The complete all-NBPA Top 100 Camp picks by way of the vote of the members of the John Lucas-led Selection Committee:
Most Outstanding Player
Cooper Flagg (Montverde, FL, Academy)
All-Camp
Darius Acuff (Detroit Cass Tech)
Cameron Boozer (Miami Columbus)
A.J. Dybansta (Napa, CA, Prolific Prep)
V.J. Edgecombe (Long Island Lutheran)
Darryn Peterson (Canton, OH, Cuyahoga Valley Christian)
Jayden Quaintance (Raleigh Word of God Academy)
Derek Queen (Montverde Academy)
Khani Rooths (Bradenton, FL, IMG Academy)
Bryson Tiller (Atlanta Overtime Elite)
Bryson Tucker (Bradenton, FL, IMG Academy)
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