The NBA announced Monday that Dallas Mavericks forward Cooper Flagg is the 2025-26 Kia Rookie of the Year after one of the tightest award votes the league has seen in more than two decades. Flagg, the first overall pick in last June’s draft, received 56 of 100 first-place votes from a global media panel and finished with 412 total voting points. Charlotte Hornets guard Kon Knueppel, the fourth overall pick, collected the other 44 first-place votes and 386 points — a 26-point gap that ranks as the second smallest between first and second place under the current voting format, which dates to 2002-03. Only the 15-point spread between Scottie Barnes and Evan Mobley in 2021-22 was tighter. Philadelphia 76ers guard VJ Edgecombe finished a distant third with 96 points.
Flagg’s campaign was historically productive. The 19-year-old averaged 21.0 points, 6.7 rebounds, 4.5 assists, and 1.2 steals across 70 games, leading all rookies in scoring and ranking second or better in every other statistical category. He joined Michael Jordan as the only rookies since 1973-74 to lead their team in total points, rebounds, assists, and steals in the same season. He also became the first rookie to post four 40-point games since Allen Iverson in 1996-97. His most striking individual night came April 3 against the Orlando Magic: 51 points, the highest single-game total ever by a player age 19 or younger in NBA history. Down the stretch, Flagg averaged 25.5 points per game on 46.1 percent shooting from March 21 through the end of the regular season.
Knueppel built a legitimate case of his own. The Hornets guard averaged 18.5 points, 5.3 rebounds, and 3.4 assists while shooting 47.5 percent from the floor and 42.5 percent from three-point range. He led the entire NBA in three-pointers made, connecting on 273 — the first rookie to ever lead the league in that category. Nearly half the voters ranked him first, underlining how genuine the debate was all season. What ultimately favored Flagg was his all-around two-way production and the outsized offensive responsibility he shouldered after Dallas rebuilt the roster around him.
Flagg is the third Maverick to win the award, joining head coach Jason Kidd, who received the honor in 1995, and Luka Doncic, who won it in 2019. At 19 years and 112 days on the final day of the regular season, Flagg is also the second-youngest Rookie of the Year winner in league history, behind only LeBron James by six days.
South Carolina has its own connection to this moment. Zion Williamson — who grew up in Spartanburg and played at Spartanburg Day School — was the first overall pick in the 2019 NBA Draft, tracing the same draft-position path Flagg completed last June. Williamson’s rise from Hub City courts built Spartanburg’s reputation as a high-level basketball pipeline. In Flagg’s own draft class, Columbia native Collin Murray-Boyles — who played at the University of South Carolina before going ninth overall to the Toronto Raptors — averaged 8.5 points and 5.0 rebounds this season and earned All-Rookie Second Team consideration. Murray-Boyles was the first Gamecock ever chosen in the NBA lottery.
