The 2025-2026 NBA season had one of the tightest Rookie of the Year races of all-time. In the end, Cooper Flagg won the award beating out Kon Knueppel. Flagg was drafted No. 1 by the Dallas Mavericks in the NBA draft and put up historic numbers in his rookie season. Flagg averaged 21 points per game, 6.7 rebounds per game, and 4.5 assists per game. He’s the second rookie of the year ever to lead his team in points, rebounds,assists and steals. The only other rookie to ever do that was Michael Jordan; the youngest player ever to score 50+ points in a game.
Flagg got 56 first-place finishes in the race and Knueppeul received 43 first-place votes. Some fans felt that Kon Knueppel was robbed of the award. He averaged 18.5 points per game, 5.3 rebounds per game, and 3.4 assists per game. Kon set the NBA rookie record for 3 pointers made. He also led the Hornets to winning 25 more games than they did last year, making the Play-In Tournament and winning one game in the Play-In. Unfortunately, he played poorly in the tournament, which may have been a factor in the final decision for the award.
Freshman Kayden Jones shared his thoughts about this year’s Rookies, “This ROTY race was so exciting and I felt like they could’ve both won the award. They both had valid reasons to win and both Kon and Coop are going to be really good players in the future.” It’s interesting to note that these two players shared the court in college at Duke and now are competing with each other for the best rookie. It’s going to be fun to watch these players in the future and it was a great race for Rookie of the Year.
