Duke's Cooper Flagg Partners with Cort Furniture for Cross-Country Move

The projected 2025 NBA Draft first overall pick has become accustomed to moving across the country.

Noah Henderson | Oct 27, 2024

Oct 4, 2024; Durham, NC, USA; Duke Blue Devils guard Cooper Flagg (2) is introduced to the fans during Countdown to Craziness at Cameron Indoor Stadium. Mandatory Credit: Jaylynn Nash-Imagn Images / Jaylynn Nash-Imagn Images

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Duke Blue Devils

Cooper Flagg better get used to moving. As the anticipated number-one pick in the 2025 NBA Draft, many NBA franchises across the country will be praying that the draft lottery bestows the number-one pick to their city. For now, Cooper will take a short-term stay in Durham, North Carolina as he showcases his talents on an incredibly exciting Duke team that looks to challenge for a national title.

As a highly mobile man, Flagg has inked a partnership with temporary furnishing supplier Cort to highlight the transitory nature of being an elite amateur athlete. Within the new partnership, Flagg showed off his new North Carolina-based digs and the in-kind furnishing services Cort provided as part of the endorsement deal. The video from Flagg, found on his Instagram, has already amassed over 20,000 likes.

For athletes, leveraging NIL deals for services and not only monetary compensation is wise -- so long as they understand the potential tax implications on services. Moving is an expensive experience that all students, not just student-athletes, consistently spend money on at the beginning of each academic year.

For Cort, college athletes’ influence within their collegiate communities can help promote these services to a market that needs them the most. For athletes, signing deals that include in-kind services can eliminate the costs of being a student and allow them to focus on their busy lives filled with athletic and academic commitments.

Flagg could very well do another Cort endorsement within the year. Depending on how the NBA season shakes out, the following Flagg moving video could occur in Salt Lake, Brooklyn, Washington D.C, or elsewhere. With the salary and signing bonus NBA number one picks receive, the next iteration will likely feature way more furniture and a much less modest home.

Published Oct 27, 2024

NOAH HENDERSON

Professor Noah Henderson teaches in the sport management department at Loyola University Chicago. Outside the classroom, he advises companies, schools, and collectives on Name, Image, and Likeness best practices. His academic research focuses on the intersection of law, economics, and social consequences regarding college athletics, NIL, and sports gambling. Before teaching, Prof. Henderson was part of a team that amended Illinois NIL legislation and managed NIL collectives at the nation’s most prominent athletic institutions while working for industry leader Student Athlete NIL. He holds a Juris Doctor from the University of Illinois College of Law in Urbana-Champaign and a Bachelor of Economics from Saint Joseph’s University, where he was a four-year letter winner on the golf team. Prof. Henderson is a native of San Diego, California, and a former golf CIF state champion with Torrey Pines High School. Outside of athletics, he enjoys playing guitar, hanging out with dogs, and eating California burritos. You can follow him on Twitter: @NoahImgLikeness.