DURHAM, N.C. — Wait, is this real?
It’s a recent Tuesday afternoon, about 10 minutes before Cameron Boozer’s latest endorsement obligation — on a rare, so-called “off” day — and the Duke basketball phenom is distracted by something resting on an end table.
Something shiny.
It would be too easy for Boozer, like so many in his generation, to fill that free time with his phone. A quick doomscroll through Instagram or TikTok. Maybe a Snapchat selfie to someone in his inner circle. Instead, the 18-year-old surveys his surroundings in Duke’s social media studio — a small square of a room off a long, blue-carpeted hallway buried deep in Cameron Indoor Stadium — for entertainment. And underneath a white ceramic lampshade, with “DUKE” written across it in gothic script, he’s found it.
A massive, diamond-studded championship ring the size of a grapefruit, which Boozer quickly jams three of his oversized fingers into.
No, one of Duke’s videographers informs Boozer. It’s not real. Just an oversized replica of the commemorative rings that last season’s Blue Devils received for their Final Four run.
“That’s touuuuuugh,” Boozer responds, sounding every bit a teenager as he holds the trinket up to the ceiling light. “Type s—.”
And if you don’t know what that means, well, join the club.
“I don’t understand half the stuff he says,” jokes Duke coach Jon Scheyer.
Welcome to the Cameron Boozer Experience, one that has dominated this season of college basketball — and that will almost certainly define the NCAA Tournament, which Duke opened with a closer-than-expected win Thursday over Siena. Of course, most tuning into March Madness know Boozer only one way: as a 6-foot-9 towering specimen of talent, the best player on the No. 1 seed in the field and the runaway front-runner for National Player of the Year. Only three freshmen have won that award — Kevin Durant in 2007, Anthony Davis in 2012 and Duke’s Cooper Flagg just last year — but Boozer is poised to become the fourth, if not something much more.
Because, just like Flagg a year ago, Boozer is having one of the best one-and-done seasons of all time.
Or, to use Boozer’s own Gen Z slang? He is doing the absolute most.
“You nod as if you understand, even though you don’t,” adds Boozer’s mother, CeCe. “You’re like, ‘OK, am I officially old?’ Very, very Gen Z.”
Spend as little as five seconds in Boozer’s oversized orbit, and his age-adjusted vocabulary stands out. It’s nonsensical nomenclature, yet entirely fitting for a teenager who just so happens to have talent beyond his years. Thanks to his famous father, Carlos, a two-time NBA All-Star and Duke Hall of Famer, Boozer has endured years of media training to reveal nothing of consequence — instincts that can kick in at any moment.
Boring? To the public, probably.
Or smart, when everyone wants a piece of you and your rapidly expanding brand. When, in Boozer’s case, you’re on the precipice of springboarding to the NBA, potentially as the top pick.
“We work on that,” Boozer says with an exaggerated smirk and pursed lips.
Adds twin brother Cayden, a point guard for Duke: “I feel like it’s good to do that. … If you’re giving everything (away) that you do, you might lose yourself in a sense.”
Yet, ask anyone at Duke, and they’ll tell you that behind the scenes, that hasn’t been the case with Boozer. That, if anything, he’s been as affable a superstar as has come through Durham. Not even the pressure of winning a national title has daunted Boozer or caused him to enjoy his final few games any less. He’s still goofy. Bitingly sarcastic.
A troll, to use his own words.
“I like to make jokes. I like to laugh,” he says, in a rare moment of insight. “So, trolling is a good way to do those things.”
Cameron Boozer, left, and Cayden Boozer, center, have multiple NIL deals, overseen by their mother, CeCe. (Grant Halverson / Getty Images)
Which is why, when Boozer finally finishes fiddling with the replica ring — a real version of which he hopes to win in three weeks — he spouts off in a stream of consciousness. Anything to stoke some reaction from Cayden — his partner in multiple name, image and likeness deals, who is starting alongside him after an injury to yearlong point guard Caleb Foster — or Duke’s video team, or anyone in the room.
When Cayden’s Instagram feed pulls up a video of someone bull riding, a debate breaks out: How long do you think you could hang on? Cameron reckons he could survive eight seconds — and would try it, just for the experience. Eventually, Cayden asks his twin how he thought his ESPN interview went earlier in the afternoon, before No. 1 Duke’s regular-season finale against rival North Carolina.
It’s at that point that Boozer — with quads practically hulking out of his “nice” black dress pants — finally sits down on the worn gray couch in the studio and grins.
“I didn’t give ’em anything,” he says proudly, before turning to the video call chiming to life on a laptop in front of him and Cayden.
The comparisons were always going to be inevitable.
Generational freshman talents back-to-back. The faces of college basketball during their respective nine-month stints dominating the sport.
“Cooper and Cam,” Scheyer says, “they’re both one-of-a-kind players, right?”
And while there is little overlap between the two, there is at least one way in which Boozer has benefited from his immediate predecessor. Boozer says that he and Flagg, the No. 1 draft pick for the Dallas Mavericks, are friendly, if not particularly close. But he learned something from watching Flagg from afar a season ago.
That his parents were wise to teach him to build walls.
“Cooper obviously had an amazing year, but people would still nitpick him and be like, ‘Oh, he did this, he did that,’” Boozer says. “That really just mentally got me ready to be like, ‘OK, even if I have a great year, if I’m doing everything perfect, people could be saying certain things.’ ”
Although, in Boozer’s case, good luck nitpicking much.
The future top-three NBA Draft pick paces the Blue Devils in points (22.5), rebounds (10.3) and assists (4.1) per game, while leading the nation in win shares, player efficiency rating and box plus/minus. He’s not just topping those charts; he’s full-on lapping the field. Boozer’s KenPom Player of the Year rating is also greater than anyone’s in the history of the site, dating to 2011, a list including Flagg, Zach Edey (twice) and every other great of the past 15 seasons.
“As good a season as we’ve had in our program,” adds Scheyer, who, in addition to Flagg, has also coached Zion Williamson, Paolo Banchero and Jayson Tatum. “How can you argue that?”
It’s probably an overstatement to suggest that Boozer was fated to become such a phenom, given how many NBA sons eventually flame out, but Carlos saw the signs early. The twins grew up splitting their time among football, baseball and even hockey for a year, but their potential hit him in full force in their eighth-grade year, when he witnessed them dominate varsity practices at their eventual high school. By age 14, ESPN televised one of its games. When Boozer turned 15, he suited up in a local Miami pro-am that has featured the likes of Bam Adebayo, James Harden and Rudy Gay — and more than held his own.
“Had like a 25-ball,” Carlos recalls, “against grown men and pros.”
Boozer’s trajectory has been a moonshot ever since. He has the basketball Midas touch, impacting winning at every level he’s ever played — including the grassroots level, where he and Cayden formed the nucleus of the only team to win Nike’s illustrious Peach Jam three years running. Even amid maybe the most stellar freshman class in college basketball history, Boozer has been the ultimate Mr. Reliable, racking up at least 14 points, five rebounds and two assists in Duke’s first 33 games before the streak ended in the ACC tournament.
It was the longest streak by any men’s or women’s D-I player this century.
Carlos says he never steered the boys — who were born in summer 2007, months after the first of his two NBA All-Star appearances — toward basketball specifically, but he also never needed to. With their life experiences, how could they not have fallen in love with the bouncing ball?
Carlos Boozer said he never tried to steer his sons toward basketball. He didn’t need to. (Gregory Shamus / Getty Images)
Dunking on miniature hoops in the Chicago Bulls family room, imitating Derrick Rose next to the NBA’s youngest MVP. Courtside seats for the Bulls’ epic 2010s playoff series against the Miami Heat, with an up-close view of some of LeBron James’ most iconic moments. Dinner with Jimmy Butler and Joakim Noah, Kirk Hinrich and DJ Augustin.
“Them being around all the guys, and being around the game, just showed them what was possible,” Carlos says. “They already had a huge passion for it, but they were able to see it up close and personal — which may have sparked something, even a greater drive for them to try to get there.”
However, those brushes with fame also taught Cameron and Cayden the necessity of protecting their privacy. Asked by ESPN’s Rece Davis what makes him mad, days before the UNC rematch, Boozer knows not to take the bait: “I’d rather not say.” And even in the social media era, in which Boozer has over 206,000 Instagram followers, the twins are reticent to drop their guard outside a tight inner circle.
Their former teammates from Christopher Columbus High in Miami, where they won four consecutive state championships and rose to five-star recruiting status. Their current Duke teammates. Their parents (who have been divorced since 2015) and older brother, Carmani, who plays baseball at the University of Fort Lauderdale. And for Boozer specifically, his longtime girlfriend and high school sweetheart, Yva Lauren Cao.
Over Duke’s winter break in December, Cameron flew home to Miami for a few days, only to wind up back in an ACC gym — to support his girlfriend, a cheerleader for the Hurricanes.
“Everybody looks at him — he’s a 6-10, strong, beast of a dude — and thinks that he’s older, but he’s every bit of 18,” says father Carlos. “He’s every bit a teenager, just in a grown man’s body.”
Still, in this era of college basketball, the Boozer twins also must exist in a middle ground: a space where they need to open up enough for their various sponsorship deals, which have made them some of this season’s most visible (and well-paid) players. CeCe helps Cameron and Cayden in a major way there, overseeing their growing list of NIL endorsements with Samsung, Jordan Brand and Crocs, among others. In those settings, a somewhat authentic version of them can emerge, like in a recent State Farm commercial, which seemingly begins seriously and ends with the two soaking wet, face-to-face, after “crashing” their car into a fire hydrant.
“When opportunities present themselves that we feel like are good opportunities, you’re not going to pass up on them,” Cayden says. “And at the end of the day, it’s kind of cool to be in a commercial.”
In Duke’s social media studio, the twins freelance through their Facebook partnership, relying heavily on their hammy humor. Then, about an hour later, the Boozers have to shoot (another) video: this time, answering a series of Duke-specific questions the program can use in future social media posts.
Cayden goes first, leaving Cameron — finally — to silently scroll social media off-camera. His Instagram feed is immediately full of animal videos: probably, based on his viewing habits, from just having binged “Our Planet II.” (He started “Two and a Half Men” earlier this season but never finished it. Now he’s onto Netflix’s “Drive To Survive,” an all-access Formula One docuseries.)
“Y’all gotta tune in,” he tells Duke’s video team as Cayden wraps up, shaking his pointer while sliding into a black-padded folding chair. As he does, one of Duke’s photographers asks Cameron if there’s a particular photo from this season he wants displayed during the shoot, on the giant TV over his shoulder.
No hesitation.
“Something legendary.”
Although with the season he’s having, that’s not nearly specific enough.
Because outside of Boozer’s very first half of college basketball — in which Texas held him scoreless at a neutral site — nobody in the sport has had any answers for him. He had 35 points against SEC champion Arkansas in November, which was somehow the second time he hit that mark in his first eight college games. The next contest, he had 29 points and six rebounds against eventual No. 1 seed Florida — including the game-winning assist, when Scheyer trusted him to make the right read.
Even his “off” game against No. 10 Virginia in last week’s ACC championship was a near triple-double: 13 points, eight rebounds and eight assists, including the game-deciding offensive board with under 25 seconds to play.
“It’s brutal,” Virginia coach Ryan Odom said of preparing to defend Boozer. “Just a special player. He has the ability to beat you in a multitude of ways.”
How Boozer’s game will translate to the NBA, though, has been a common source of debate. The chief knocks on him? Perceived athletic limitations, and how his upside pales in comparison to BYU’s AJ Dybantsa or Kansas’ Darryn Peterson. Those hypotheticals, regardless of his incomparable numbers, may mean he “falls” to the third pick — which is where he landed in The Athletic’s latest mock draft.
“Obviously, you see the dialogue. For me, whether I go one or I go 15th, it’s more about fit,” Boozer says, in a rare moment the wall comes down. “I just want to have a long career. Where I start doesn’t really determine where I’m going to finish or end up. So obviously I see what people say, I see whatever, but that’s not going to matter 10 years from now. It’s just about, for me, stacking days. Being the best version of me. And yeah, everything will work out fine.”
Like it already has.
“A lot of kids, when they’re placed into a situation where they think they have their trajectory, they’re only focused on the end. Well, we’ve already seen the end — and so we know how important all those small things are in the middle,” CeCe says. “Really getting them to embrace the moment and enjoy the moment, because you never get it back. If you’re always looking ahead, then how do you really appreciate where you are?”
The video interview in Duke’s social studio is almost done. Just one more question:
“Do you feel dominant out there?”
The best player in college basketball scoffs, clearly deciding how much to let on. Whether to tell the truth — that, yes, he’s an unstoppable load at this level — or to embrace modesty. Whether to go all in, as he has this entire season at Duke, or sidestep the truth with another cringe-worthy Gen Z joke. His biggest test yet, leading Duke back to the Final Four, is still ahead.
Yet, after a meaty pause, through pursed lips, Cameron Boozer smirks. Suddenly, you can see him as he really is.
“Sometimes.”