Cooper Flagg edged his former Duke roommate to win the NBA rookie of the year award on Monday night. Flagg is the first rookie since Michael Jordan in the 1984-85 season to lead his team in points, rebounds, assists and steals.
Flagg and Knueppel were first and second in rookie scoring, the first former college teammates to achieve the feat since UConn stars Emeka Okafor and Ben Gordon in 2004-05. Philadelphia’s VJ Edgecombe was the other finalist for this year’s award.
The 19-year-old Flagg is the second-youngest player to win the award behind LeBron James.
Flagg and Knueppel traded places as betting favorites for the award during the season, but Flagg’s 96-point outburst over two games on the penultimate weekend of the season may have tipped the scales.
The first of those games was Flagg’s 51-point showing for the Dallas Mavericks against Orlando, the first time a teenager has scored 50 in the NBA. He broke his own record for a teenager of 49, set against Knueppel and the Hornets in January.
“I see the games every night. I can check the box scores,” Flagg said when asked how close of an eye he kept on Knueppel. “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.”
It was, as expected, one of the closest votes in rookie of the year history. Only 26 points separated Flagg and Knueppel in a balloting where 100 reporters and broadcasters who cover the league ranked their top three rookies, with five points going to first place, three to second and one to third.
Knueppel, who was a one-and-done at Duke just like Flagg but turned 20 before his NBA career started, became the first rookie to lead the league in three-pointers (273). He averaged 18.5 points, 5.3 rebounds and 3.4 assists, while shooting 42.5% from three-point range to join Larry Bird and Paul Pierce as the only NBA rookies to average 15 points and five rebounds per game while shooting better than 40% from beyond the arc. Behind Knueppel, Charlotte won 44 games before being eliminated by Orlando in the final round of the play-in tournament.
Flagg thought he was joining a playoff contender after the Mavericks took him No 1 overall. Knueppel was the fourth pick. But Anthony Davis was sidelined again as Dallas started slowly, and was traded to Washington before Flagg’s fellow Duke alum, Kyrie Irving, could return from a knee injury. The Mavericks eventually decided to keep Irving out the entire season.
Despite his team’s steady slide in the standings, Flagg kept making history a year after leading Duke to the Final Four. Flagg and Jordan are the only rookies to record multiple games of at least 45 points since the NBA-ABA merger in 1976-77.
“I think you talk about pressure and things like that, this season was a lot different going into it and what I was expecting and how the season ended up turning out,” Flagg said. “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. I think I grew in a lot of different areas.”