When Luka Doncic resided in Dallas, there were several years where it felt he didn\u2019t have enough noise to charge for any awards. The 2023-24 season in particular comes to mind \u2014 a 33\/9\/9 season ending without a top-three finish in MVP voting is shocking, to say the least.<\/p>\n
A year out from his unexpected departure, it seems to be happening again. Rookie Cooper Flagg is tearing it up, breaking rookie record after rookie record, and yet voters don\u2019t seem to care. He\u2019s only just now become the odds-on favorite for Rookie of the Year. There\u2019s no certainty that he\u2019ll even win the award, given what media members had to say:<\/p>\n
History may be repeating itself in Dallas.<\/p>\n
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Planting The Flagg<\/p>\n
Usually superstars have to rise to stardom, but as many have learned, not much is usual about Cooper Flagg. The Duke sensation was in that circle from the day he became a Maverick. Seen as a gift from the basketball gods to Dallas, heaps of expectations were put upon him. Flagg\u2019s met the majority of them brilliantly.<\/p>\n
He\u2019s averaging 21.1 PPG, which leads all rookies. His 4.6 assists per game are only second to his teammate, Ryan Nembhard. Combining that with his 6.6 rebounds per game, he is one of eight<\/a> players to put up at least 20\/6\/4 in their rookie year. Of the other seven, five are already in the Hall of Fame. The aforementioned Doncic is also featured on the list\u2014he will likely be number six. Of the rookies highest scoring games, Flagg is seven<\/a> of the top 10, including the highest four.<\/p>\n He\u2019s leading his team in PPG and SPG. He also leads Dallas in total rebounds and assists. The label for \u201cyoungest player to score 40\u201d and \u201cyoungest player to score 50\u201d now both belong to him.<\/p>\n To top it all off, he\u2019s doing all of this at the age of 19 years and three months old\u2014younger than even the youngest prodigies in sports, like current F1 leader Kimi Antonelli (19 years, 7 months old). Simply put, a player this young has never produced the way Cooper Flagg is producing this year.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Yet, it might not matter.<\/p>\n A Flawed Koncept Of Thinking<\/p>\n Yes, Hornets rookie Kon Knueppel is having a fantastic season. He\u2019s set the rookie record<\/a> for most threes, and he\u2019s a big part of the Hornets surge towards the playoffs. However, within the last part of that last statement lies the issue.<\/p>\n The main argument is that Knueppel has been impacting winning\u2014more so than Flagg. While it\u2019s true that Knueppel helped turned one of the worst teams in the league into a playoff contender, it\u2019s also true that his team hasn\u2019t been massacred by the injury bug. Not the case for Flagg, as notably both Dereck Lively and Kyrie Irving\u2014the Mavs two best players outside of Flagg\u2014have missed significant<\/a> time, the entire season in the case of Irving, with major<\/a> injuries.<\/p>\n It\u2019s hard for any player to impact winning when the best players around them don\u2019t play. Awards\u2014ROTY, the MVP, MIP\u2014should not solely be based on team success. Every situation is different, and individual brilliance should matter to a good degree.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Flagg has Knueppel beat there too.<\/p>\n Flagg\u2019s got more PPG\/RPG\/APG (21.1\/6.6\/4.6 to 18.7\/5.3\/3.4). He averages more steals and blocks a night, at 1.2 and 0.9 respectively (Knueppel averages 0.7 and 0.2). Their FG% are about the same\u201448.1% for Kon, 47.3% for Cooper. Flagg\u2019s Player Efficiency Rating sits at exactly 18, and Knueppel\u2019s is slightly behind at 17.5. Finally, Flagg\u2019s Defensive Win Shares and Defensive +\/- both surpass Knueppel\u2019s.<\/p>\n To put a bow on it all, add in that Flagg is now third<\/a> in the league in 45+ point games behind SGA and Luka.<\/p>\n Yet, not only is it not a done deal, but Flagg could still straight up lose ROTY. It\u2019s flawed, inconsistently applied logic that Dallas fans are all too familiar with.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n \u00a0<\/p>\n Luckily, for those on Flagg\u2019s side of the fight, there\u2019s precedence that favors the man from Maine.<\/p>\n We\u2019ve Been Here Before\u2014We Were Just Here, Actually<\/p>\n This year, the NBA ROTY race has four distinct identifiers:<\/p>\n Two elite players from a prestigious basketball school<\/p>\n One is the No.1 overall pick, the other is top five<\/p>\n One is viewed as a generational prospect, the other as a ridiculously good shooter<\/p>\n One is the most outstanding player on a bad team, the other helps their team push for a playoff spot<\/p>\n A lot of people have used the ROTY race from 2003 as a direct comparison, with Flagg serving as the Lebron James and Knueppel serving as the Carmelo Anthony of this story. However, there\u2019s another example that\u2019s more recent and feels more comparable, at least play-style and circumstance wise.<\/p>\n In 2024, the WNBA welcomed two great talents: Paige Bueckers and Sonia Citron. Just like Flagg, Bueckers was the consensus No. 1 pick in her class\u2014she even went to the Wings, the WNBA\u2019s Dallas team. Citron, an elite shooter with great defensive capabilities, went to the Mystics, a bad team with young talent. Sounds a lot like Knueppel\u2019s deal, doesn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n Their colleges, by the way? UConn and Notre Dame, two of the most prestigious basketball colleges, especially on the women\u2019s side.<\/p>\n Bueckers spent her rookie year as the best player on a Wings team that was bottom of the league. Citron and the Mystics rose and made a run towards the postseason. The rhetoric surrounding this duel eerily mimicked the stuff fans are hearing right now:<\/p>\n \u201cCitron is putting it up for debate\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cCould Sonia make things interesting?\u201d<\/p>\n In the end, Bueckers ran away with the award, which will be music to the ears of Flagg fans everywhere. The Flagg of this story got her award and recognition.<\/p>\n Now it remains to be seen if The Maine Event has the same happy ending.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n The post Cooper Flagg Is Newest Dallas Star to Have Their Award Toyed With<\/a> appeared first on The Lead<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When Luka Doncic resided in Dallas, there were several years where it felt he didn\u2019t have enough noise…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":706215,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3793],"tags":[7,225,686,149,4057,1264,968,967,185,166,6,10808,9856],"class_list":{"0":"post-706214","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-dallas-mavericks","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-cooper-flagg","10":"tag-dallas","11":"tag-dallas-mavericks","12":"tag-dallasmavericks","13":"tag-dereck-lively-ii","14":"tag-kon-knueppel","15":"tag-kyrie-irving","16":"tag-lebron-james","17":"tag-mavericks","18":"tag-nba","19":"tag-roty","20":"tag-ryan-nembhard"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116372016116550152","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706214","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=706214"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706214\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/706215"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=706214"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=706214"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=706214"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}