Has No. 1 overall pick Cooper Flagg done enough to completely flip the Rookie of the Year race?<\/p>\n
After a 33-point game against the San Antonio Spurs on Friday night, Flagg is now a -175 favorite in the odds at DraftKings to win Rookie of the Year over his college teammate Kon Knueppel.\u00a0<\/p>\n
There has been a ton of movement in this market since early April, with the odds currently settling at these prices:\u00a0<\/p>\n
NBA Rookie of the Year Odds<\/p>\n
Odds via DraftKings Sportsbook<\/a><\/p>\n Cooper Flagg: -175Kon Knueppel: +135<\/p>\n Back on April 3, ESPN\u2019s Tim Bontemps released a straw poll<\/a> of potential awards voters to give an outlook on the Rookie of the Year race. Knueppel received 80 of the 100 first-place votes in that poll, moving his odds to -1800 to win this award.<\/p>\n The Charlotte Hornets guard had been favored for quite some time to win Rookie of the Year, but the movement after the poll came made him by far the biggest favorite he had been all season.\u00a0<\/p>\n That was short-lived for Knueppel, as Flagg dropped 51 points that night against the Orlando Magic, moving the odds to this<\/a>:\u00a0<\/p>\n Kon Knueppel: -350Cooper Flagg: +240<\/p>\n Then, Flagg dropped 45 points against the Los Angeles Lakers on April 5, moving him to the favorite to win Rookie of the Year<\/a>. Knueppel fell to a +150 underdog while Flagg was -200 to win the award.<\/p>\n The odds are in a similar spot now, but Knueppel had made up some ground earlier in the week. Flagg was just a -150 favorite<\/a> prior to dropping 33 points against the Spurs on Friday night.\u00a0<\/p>\n There is a real case for both players to win this award. Flagg has been forced into a lead role for a struggling Dallas team, and he\u2019s thrived in it, averaging 21.2 points, 6.7 rebounds and 4.6 assists per game while shooting 46.8 percent from the field and 29.6 percent from 3.<\/p>\n The No. 1 overall pick in the 2026 NBA Draft has really come on since returning from a foot injury in early March, averaging 23.2 points, 7.1 rebounds and 5.7 assists per game over his last 20 games.\u00a0<\/p>\n However, is that enough to overtake Knueppel? The Hornets wing set the rookie record for 3-pointers made in the 2025-26 season, and he\u2019s helped Charlotte into playoff contention. Still, back-to-back losses by the Hornets late in the season may force them into the No. 9 vs. No. 10 game, which would make it a tall task for them to make the postseason.\u00a0<\/p>\n Knueppel is averaging 18.6 points, 5.3 rebounds and 3.4 assists per game while shooting 47.7 percent from the field and 42.7 percent from 3. He\u2019s only missed one game all season, and he\u2019s been a much more efficient player than Flagg on a better team.<\/p>\n That being said, Knueppel isn\u2019t asked to carry the nightly load that Flagg is on the offensive end. And, he\u2019s struggled down the stretch of this season, which has allowed the Mavs star back into this race.<\/p>\n Knueppel is averaging 16.4 points per game since March 1, shooting 43.9 percent from the field and 28.2 percent from 3. Over his last 11 games, he\u2019s shooting 39.4 percent from the field and averaging 14.1 points per game.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n Flagg\u2019s late-season surge has clearly flipped things in the eyes of oddsmakers, and it\u2019ll be interesting to see if voters that took Knueppel in ESPN\u2019s poll have changed their mind during the final week of the regular season. <\/p>\n Odds refresh periodically and are subject to change.<\/p>\n If you or someone you know has a gambling problem and wants help, call 1-800-GAMBLER.<\/p>\n Claim the latest\u00a0DraftKings promo code<\/a>\u00a0offer today. Sign up and get\u00a0$300 in bonus bets instantly when you make your first $5 bet<\/a>\u00a0and that bet wins.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Has No. 1 overall pick Cooper Flagg done enough to completely flip the Rookie of the Year race?…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":708135,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3793],"tags":[7,686,149,4057,166,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-708134","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\/116385920150711186","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708134","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=708134"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/708134\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/708135"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=708134"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=708134"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=708134"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}