There's officially new favorite to win the Rookie of the Year award.
Dallas Mavericks head coach Jason Kidd has reveled about No. 1 pick Cooper Flagg throughout his impressive rookie season, but he was frank in the rest of the audience's reactions to the 19-year-old's brilliance.
After Flagg dropped 51 points on Friday night, Kidd spoke about how the rest of the country may not be tuned into what he sees on a nightly basis. And that's for good reason. Entering Sunday night, the Mavs were out of the playoff race and 24-53 on the season.
But with an Easter showdown against LeBron James and the Los Angeles Lakers on national television, Flagg and the Mavs gave fans another glimpse of what they might've been missing out on.
Flagg scored 45 points at a sold out American Airlines Center in a 134-128 win for Dallas, snapping a 14-game home losing streak in the building and also making more unprecedented rookie history.
The Mavs' new centerpiece became the first rookie since Allen Iverson to score back-to-back 40-point games. His three career-best scoring games - 45, 49 and 51 - are the three of the four 45-point games achieved by a teenager in NBA history.
Even still, Flagg has trailed former Duke teammate and Charlotte Hornets sharpshooter Kon Knueppel in Rookie of the Year polling. Knueppel leads all players in 3-pointers made and knocks them down at better more than 43 percent of the time.
Those odds saw a dramatic shift Monday morning after another dominant outing by Flagg.
According to DraftKings, Flagg is now the favorite to win the Rookie of the Year award at -250 odds. Knueppel is close behind at +180.
Before the final buzzer between the Mavericks and Lakers, public trading site Kalshi had already seen the same movement. Flagg's probability to win the award jumped to 59 percent, dropping Knueppel's to 46 percent.
Flagg did more than just score on Sunday; he added eight rebounds, nine assists, two steals and a block in 39 minutes. He - the youngest player in the NBA - impacted the game more than anyone else, even the 41-year-old future Hall of Famer LeBron James - the league's oldest player - who posted 30 points, a season-high 15 assists and nine rebounds.
"I think it's definitely some sort of statement," Flagg said about this game possibly dictating his ROTY race. "But it just goes back to what I said: I'm confident in myself, and I know what I'm capable of. I'll just let the rest of the stuff figure itself out."
And if you need a head-to-head example of Flagg's rise over Knueppel: Cooper's 96 points in the last two games are more than Knueppel has scored in his last six (83). In the only game where the two faced off against one another (Jan. 29), Flagg scored 49 points to Knueppel's 34.
Kidd went back to what he's been seeing all along.
"I don't know if he's making a closing statement, I think he's doing what he's been doing all season," the coach said. "Being able to play different positions. Being able to be uncomfortable. He's never complained and has delivered for us.
"Tonight, being able to do it on national television, it's not easy. Especially coming off a 50-ball. He wants to win, and he helped the team win tonight."
Knueppel's arrival in Charlotte has coincided with a resurgence by the Hornets, though they also returned top scorers LaMelo Ball and Brandon Miller after missing most of last season. Buzz City is firmly placed in the Eastern Conference playoff race, which may be impacting Knueppel's perceived impact, and thus deserving of the rookie award.
But as Kidd alluded to, what Flagg's done this week has been a continuation of the history he's been a part of. Sunday in Dallas, the Mavericks gifted members of the media with a goodie bag of Flagg-branded memorabilia as a campaign push for Coop's place in the ROTY race. One of the items is a literal receipt of all of his accomplishments, which span not just history for all teenagers, but even some of the game's greatest players who have won the ROTY award.
"I mean, he's obviously special," said James, the 2003-04 Rookie of the Year and whose records Flagg has chased in his first season. "I've seen that all the way back to like the AAU days, when he was coming up in the ranks and playing with his team out of Maine, and he was doing the things that he was doing on the circuit. So, knew he was special from then, and he's just taken that from what he was doing back home to the AAU circuit to Duke to now here, and he's getting better and better and better.
"Looks like he loves the game. He's putting in the work, and he's gotten better."
And now the rest of the NBA landscape is - finally - starting to take notice.
