{"id":714705,"date":"2026-04-20T17:47:33","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T17:47:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/714705\/"},"modified":"2026-04-20T17:47:33","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T17:47:33","slug":"cooper-flagg-nominated-as-rookie-of-the-year-award-finalist","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/714705\/","title":{"rendered":"Cooper Flagg nominated as Rookie of the Year Award finalist"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The NBA released their end-of-season award finalists Sunday, and as a surprise to no one, former <a href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/basketball\/ncaab\/teams\/duke-blue-devils\/1388\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Duke;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Duke&quot;}\" class=\"link \">Duke<\/a> Blue Devil and recent No. 1 overall pick Cooper Flagg received a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nba.com\/news\/2025-2026-regular-season-awards\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:nomination;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;nomination&quot;}\" class=\"link \">nomination<\/a> for the Rookie of the Year Award.<\/p>\n<p>Despite a brief battle with injury, Flagg had a record-breaking campaign, averaging 21 points, 6.7 rebounds and 4.5 assists over 70 games. Along the way, Flagg cemented himself in the history books, breaking a former rookie record held by LeBron James.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>Flagg is currently seen as a toss-up to win the award with his former Duke roommate, Charlotte Hornets forward Kon Knueppel.<\/p>\n<p>Flagg and Knueppel are joined by one other finalist, Philadelphia 76ers guard VJ Edgecombe.<\/p>\n<p>This article originally appeared on Duke Wire: <a href=\"https:\/\/dukewire.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/college\/duke\/mens-basketball\/2026\/04\/20\/cooper-flagg-nominated-as-rookie-of-the-year-award-finalist\/89696999007\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Cooper Flagg nominated as Rookie of the Year Award finalist;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Cooper Flagg nominated as Rookie of the Year Award finalist&quot;}\" class=\"link \">Cooper Flagg nominated as Rookie of the Year Award finalist<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The NBA released their end-of-season award finalists Sunday, and as a surprise to no one, former Duke Blue&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":714706,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[7,473,225,33780,968,185,6,207,43198],"class_list":{"0":"post-714705","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-charlotte-hornets","10":"tag-cooper-flagg","11":"tag-duke-blue-devil","12":"tag-kon-knueppel","13":"tag-lebron-james","14":"tag-nba","15":"tag-philadelphia-76ers","16":"tag-rookie-of-the-year-award"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116438301555401352","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714705","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=714705"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714705\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/714706"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=714705"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=714705"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=714705"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}