No. 1 overall pick Cooper Flagg is the Western Conference Rookie of the Month for the second time.
Dallas Mavericks forward Cooper Flagg has added to his candidacy for the 2025-26 Rookie of the Year award by winning the first two stepping stones that lead to that final honor: the Rookie of the Month.
After winning the monthly honor for Oct./Nov. to begin his career, Flagg has now been given the accolade for a second consecutive month in the Western Conference covering games in December.
The No. 1 overall pick Flagg, once again, was joined by former Duke teammate Kon Knueppel as the No. 4 pick of the Charlotte Hornets won the award for the Eastern Conference.
Flagg soared above the rest by averaging 23.5 points, 6.2 rebounds, 4.8 assists, 1.2 blocks and a steal per game in his first full month playing his more natural position of small forward. This has allowed him to explode for multiple high-scoring outbursts as he gets comfortable being one of Dallas' go-to offensive forces.
Flagg shot 51.6 percent overall from the field while going on a notable surge just after his 19th birthday on Dec. 21. He's gone 10-20 from three-point range over the Mavericks' last five games.
He is on a 14-game streak of 15 or more points, which includes his monster 42-point night at Utah on Dec. 15 when he was still 18 years of age. That game made him the youngest player in NBA history to drop a 40 burger (and the only 18-year-old ever to do so), passing future Hall-of-Famer LeBron James.
Like Flagg, James was heralded as a face of the NBA as soon as he entered the league. The Mavs' rookie is following in those footsteps, and like LeBron, Coop has someone on his heels.
James swept the six Eastern Conference Rookie of the Month awards in the 2003-04 season. No. 3 pick Carmelo Anthony did the same that season in the West, but James took home the hardware of Rookie of the Year.
Though it is still early in the season, Flagg and Knueppel have matched that pace. No two rookies have swept the monthly honors for an entire season since James and Anthony, and the latest rookie to win every Rookie of the Month trophy in their inaugural season was former Mavs star Luka Doncic in 2018-19.
For the season, Flagg is up to 19.2 points, 6.4 rebounds and 4.1 assists per game.
He leads the 12-23 Mavericks into their second game of 2026 on Saturday to face the Houston Rockets at American Airlines Center at 7:30 p.m.