Cooper Flagg won the NBA rookie of the year award Monday night, edging his former Duke teammate Konrad Knueppel in one of the closest votes in the award's history. The margin was just 26 points across the balloting, where 100 league reporters and broadcasters ranked their top three rookies on a five-three-one point scale.
At 19, Flagg becomes the second-youngest player ever to claim the honor, behind only LeBron James. He is also the first rookie since Michael Jordan in 1984-85 to lead his team in points, rebounds, assists, and steals in the same season.
The deciding moments may have come late in the regular season. Over two games on the penultimate weekend, Flagg exploded for 96 combined points. Most notably, he became the first teenager in NBA history to score 50 points in a single game when he notched 51 for the Dallas Mavericks against Orlando. He had previously set the teenage single-game record at 49 points against Knueppel and the Charlotte Hornets in January.
Knueppel, who turned 20 before beginning his NBA career after his own one-and-done year at Duke, finished second in voting. The Charlotte Hornets' shooting guard led the entire league in three-pointers with 273 and averaged 18.5 points, 5.3 rebounds, and 3.4 assists while shooting 42.5% from deep. He joined Larry Bird and Paul Pierce as the only NBA rookies to average at least 15 points and five rebounds while shooting above 40% from three-point range. Philadelphia's VJ Edgecombe was the third finalist.
Flagg and Knueppel were the first former college teammates to rank first and second in rookie scoring since UConn's Emeka Okafor and Ben Gordon in 2004-05.
Flagg was Dallas' No. 1 overall pick and expected to join a playoff contender. Instead, injuries to Anthony Davis and delays in Kyrie Irving's return from a knee injury sent the Mavericks into a slow spiral. Irving ultimately sat out the entire season, and the team slid further from contention as the campaign progressed. Knueppel was drafted fourth by Charlotte and helped lift the Hornets to 44 wins before they fell to Orlando in the play-in tournament's final round.
Despite the turmoil around his team, Flagg continued piling up historic performances. He and Jordan are the only rookies since the 1976-77 merger to record multiple games with 45 or more points.
"I think dealing with that and adjusting and kind of getting thrown in on the fly right away like that helped me long-term and throughout the season just getting really comfortable," Flagg said when reflecting on the unexpected season. "I think I grew in a lot of different areas."
When asked about tracking Knueppel's progress, Flagg acknowledged the split between competition and camaraderie. "I see the games every night. I can check the box scores," he said. "I think also I was watching Kon just because that's one of my brothers. We had such a good connection, and we're gonna be there for each other for the rest of our lives. I was watching him as a fan as well, but there was obviously that competition at the same time."
Author James Rodriguez: "A 26-point margin in a race between two Duke kids tells you how tight this was, but Flagg's back-to-back monster performances when it mattered most proved he had the clutch gene the voters wanted to see."
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