{"id":701252,"date":"2026-04-06T11:41:20","date_gmt":"2026-04-06T11:41:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/701252\/"},"modified":"2026-04-06T11:41:20","modified_gmt":"2026-04-06T11:41:20","slug":"cooper-flagg-skyrockets-to-favorite-after-consecutive-scoring-outbursts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/701252\/","title":{"rendered":"Cooper Flagg Skyrockets to Favorite After Consecutive Scoring Outbursts"},"content":{"rendered":"<p id=\"inline-text-0\" class=\"mt-[18px] md:mt-0 mb-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7e\">A complete flip in the odds to win the NBA\u2019s Rookie of the Year award has happened in less than a week.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-1\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7h\">Dallas Mavericks star Cooper Flagg \u2013 the No. 1 overall pick in the 2025 NBA Draft \u2013 has gone from a major underdog to a -200 favorite in the latest odds at DraftKings, even though he was second in a recent poll by ESPN\u2019s Tim Bontemps.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-2\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7k\">On Friday, Bontemps <a href=\"https:\/\/www.espn.com\/nba\/story\/_\/id\/48380547\/nba-mvp-award-straw-poll-sga-wemby-luka-jokic-lead-final-2025-26-update\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">released a poll<\/a> of likely award voters surrounding the Rookie of the Year race, and Charlotte Hornets guard Kon Knueppel jumped from -250 to -1800 to win the award after receiving 80 first-place votes to Flagg\u2019s 20.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-3\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7n\">Well, all it took was a couple big games for Flagg for oddsmakers to completely change their tune.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-4\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7q\">After the Mavs star dropped 51 points against the Orlando Magic on Friday, Flagg immediately shortened the odds in this market, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/betting\/cooper-flagg-51-point-game-causes-massive-shift-in-nba-rookie-of-the-year-odds\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">pushing Knueppel back down to -350<\/a> to win the Rookie of the Year.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-5\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7t\">Then, a 45-point, eight-rebound, nine-assist game in a win over the Los Angeles Lakers (on national television) completely flipped this market, as Flagg is now back to the favorite for the first time in several weeks. Knueppel had just 11 points in Sunday\u2019s win over Minnesota, and he\u2019s actually seen his points per game average drop a little since March 1.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-6\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"7w\">That has opened the door for Flagg, who is viewed as the only other player that can win this award with VJ Edgecombe (+50000) a distant third.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>NBA Rookie of the Year Odds\u00a0<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-8\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"82\"><a href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/4kJjtBu\" rel=\"nofollow sponsored noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Odds via DraftKings Sportsbook<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Cooper Flagg: -200Kon Knueppel: +150VJ Edgecombe: +50000<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-10\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"88\">Dallas has four games remaining in the 2025-26 season while the Hornets have just three. That gives Flagg an extra game to stake his claim on the Rookie of the Year, and it\u2019s hard to argue that he\u2019s been the most impressive rookie this season, even though Knueppel has posted unreal shooting numbers for a first-year player.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-11\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"8b\">Flagg has been asked to carry a No. 1 workload on a nightly basis for a banged-up Dallas team, and he\u2019s responded by improving as a scorer as the season has gone along. The Hornets may have a better record than the Mavericks, but the Rookie of the Year award traditionally doesn\u2019t factor in team performance nearly as much as the MVP.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-12\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"8e\">After entering the season as the clear favorite in this market, Flagg\u2019s late push appears to be enough to convince oddsmakers that he should win this award. It\u2019ll be interesting to see how much voters value Charlotte\u2019s team performance in Knueppel\u2019s case, but the late momentum for Flagg is certainly worth monitoring over the last week of the regular season. <\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-14\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"8j\">Odds refresh periodically and are subject to change.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-15\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"8m\">If you or someone you know has a gambling problem and wants help, call 1-800-GAMBLER.<\/p>\n<p id=\"inline-text-16\" class=\"my-[18px] [&amp;_a]:text-primary my-f-1.5\" q:key=\"0\" q:id=\"8p\">Claim the latest\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.si.com\/betting\/sportsbook-promos\/draftkings-promo-code\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">DraftKings promo code<\/a>\u00a0offer today. Sign up and win your first $5 bet to get\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/4kJjtBu\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">$200 in bonus bets instantly.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A complete flip in the odds to win the NBA\u2019s Rookie of the Year award has happened in&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":701253,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3793],"tags":[7,686,149,4057,166,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-701252","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas-mavericks","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-dallas","10":"tag-dallas-mavericks","11":"tag-dallasmavericks","12":"tag-mavericks","13":"tag-nba"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116357581007959119","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701252","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=701252"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/701252\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/701253"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=701252"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=701252"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=701252"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}