{"id":703015,"date":"2026-04-07T09:39:21","date_gmt":"2026-04-07T09:39:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/703015\/"},"modified":"2026-04-07T09:39:21","modified_gmt":"2026-04-07T09:39:21","slug":"mavericks-star-cooper-flagg-addresses-rookie-of-the-year-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/703015\/","title":{"rendered":"Mavericks Star Cooper Flagg Addresses Rookie of the Year Race"},"content":{"rendered":"

Iverson was the most recent rookie to score more than 40 points in multiple games, including five straight in 1997. Flagg has also surpassed<\/a>LeBron James<\/a> for the most 40-point games by a teenager. The Mavericks forward has four such games compared to James\u2019 three during his rookie season.<\/p>\n

Dallas selected Flagg with the No. 1 overall pick in June 2025. He and Charlotte rookie Kon Knueppel are the leading contenders for the 2025-26 NBA Rookie of the Year award. The race has been highly competitive. Flagg has four games to bolster his bid, while Knueppel has three.<\/p>\n

When asked in a recent interview about the growing buzz, Flagg said he focuses on daily improvement rather than awards. The 6-foot-9 forward noted that his main priority is playing at his best and helping build a winning culture in Dallas.<\/p>\n

“It is what it is,” Flagg told reporters<\/a>. “For me, like I’ve said before, it’s just about getting better every single day. I know what I’m capable of and what I can do.\u201d<\/p>\n

Flagg hoped his 51-point game could catch voters\u2019 attention but insisted he’s more concerned with the bigger picture. <\/p>\n

\u201cI would hope it would help, but like I said, I’m not going to worry about that,\u201d he added.<\/a> \u201cI\u2019m worried about just getting better every single night and trying to look at the big picture and start building toward something.<\/p>\n

\u201cSo for me, it’s always been about just improving every night, going out there, competing, being the player that I know I can be, and I’ll let all the rest of the stuff figure it out.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite Flagg\u2019s strong play, the Mavericks are having a grueling 25-53 season. The team is performing poorly in the Western Conference, currently sitting at No. 12 in the standings. This stands in sharp contrast to his past, when he was part of winning teams at Duke<\/a> and Montverde Academy.<\/p>\n

Flagg previously led Montverde Academy to a perfect 34-0 season and captured a national championship in 2024. At Duke, he led the Blue Devils to the 2025 ACC<\/a> Tournament title. He also helped the team reach the Final Four<\/a> in the NCAA Tournament before falling to the Houston Cougars.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Iverson was the most recent rookie to score more than 40 points in multiple games, including five straight…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":703016,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3793],"tags":[7,686,149,4057,166,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-703015","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\/116362763563725472","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703015","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=703015"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/703015\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/703016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=703015"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=703015"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=703015"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}