Cooper Flagg, the highly anticipated No. 1 overall pick in the 2025 NBA Draft, has officially inked his rookie contract with the Dallas Mavericks, a lucrative four-year deal that will see him earn approximately $13.8 million in his first year alone. This substantial sum, a testament to his immense talent and perceived potential, stands in stark contrast to the modest earnings of his formative years. Long before the bright lights of the NBA and the promise of multi-million dollar endorsements, Flagg’s competitive spirit and burgeoning work ethic were forged in the fields of Corinna, Maine, specifically as a pea picker on the aptly named Thunder Road Farm.
The memories of those early years are deeply ingrained in Cooper, his older brother Hunter, and his fraternal twin brother Ace. They were all just eleven years old when they first started working at Thunder Road Farm, a family-owned operation that has been a cornerstone of the Corinna community for generations. The work was demanding, especially for young boys, but it instilled a discipline and competitive fire that would later define Cooper’s meteoric rise in the basketball world.
Their pay was simple: $1 was paid for each bucket of peas they picked. This seemingly small sum, in the grand scheme of an NBA contract, held immense value for the young Flagg brothers. It wasn’t about getting rich; it was about the tangible reward for hard labor, the direct correlation between effort and income. And even then, Cooper’s competitive nature shone through. His mother, Kelly Flagg, recalled how “Cooper the pea picker was very competitive. He wanted to make more money than his brothers.” This innate drive to outwork and outperform was evident even in the simplest of tasks.
Working on the farm was far from glamorous. Harvesting peas required them to sit on five-gallon buckets for hours in the morning heat, meticulously plucking the small green vegetables from their vines. It was repetitive, physically taxing, and often tedious. But for Cooper, it was a formative experience. “It helps with your work ethic,” Cooper Flagg has reflected. “It helps you teach early about having a job. It was always fun to make a little money and hang out with your friends.” This perspective highlights the value he placed not just on the earnings, but on the principles of responsibility and camaraderie forged in those fields.
Charlie and Barb Peavey, the owners of Thunder Road Farm, vividly remember the young Flagg brothers. They hired between 15 and 20 youngsters each summer from central Maine for crop picking, and many, as Barb Peavey noted, “come on the farm and think it’s going to be easy. They fool around and talk.” But Cooper was different. “Cooper was very focused on what he was doing,” she said. “He put his nose to the grindstone. He picked and worked.” So relentless was his focus and productivity that in his very first week, Cooper managed to clear an impressive $100. The Peaveys, accustomed to less efficient child laborers, were genuinely surprised by his output and even joked about whether they could afford to keep him.
This early exposure to manual labor, the direct feedback of earning per bucket, and the internal competition with his siblings laid a crucial foundation for Cooper Flagg’s approach to basketball. The same focus, the same drive to maximize his output, the same relentless work ethic that propelled him to pick more peas than his brothers, eventually propelled him to become the No. 1 overall pick in the NBA Draft. He learned early that success, regardless of the endeavor, requires dedication, consistency, and a willingness to embrace the grind.
The contrast between picking peas for a dollar a bucket and signing a $13.8 million first-year NBA contract is stark, yet the underlying principles remain the same. The financial reward is astronomically different, but the mentality that drives the effort, the desire to excel, and the understanding that hard work yields results, were all cultivated during those sun-drenched mornings in Corinna, Maine. Flagg’s journey from Thunder Road Farm to the Dallas Mavericks is a powerful narrative of how humble beginnings and fundamental lessons can shape a prodigious talent, preparing him not just for the physical demands of professional sports, but for the mental fortitude required to navigate the pressures of being a franchise cornerstone. The Mavericks, in drafting Flagg, have not just acquired a supremely skilled basketball player; they have acquired a young man whose roots are firmly planted in the soil of genuine hard work and unwavering competitiveness, traits he’s been cultivating since he was an eleven-year-old pea picker.
