Cooper Flagg scored 96 points over the weekend as the now-Rookie of the Year favorite with a historically dominant two-game run.
With one of the more historic weekends in NBA rookie history, Dallas Mavericks sensation Cooper Flag made his statement. With a two-game stretch in which he scored 96 points, Flagg overtook Charlotte Hornets’ Kon Knueppel as the odds favorite as he joined elite, rare company. Flagg scored 51 points against the Orlando Magic, setting a teenage record, and followed that with 45 points, nine assists and eight rebounds in the Mavs’ 134-128 win over the Los Angeles Lakers. In doing so, Flagg became the first rookie since Allen Iverson to average at least 45 points, five rebounds, and five assists over two games. He’s also the only teenager to hit that mark. Per ESPN Research, he’s also the first rookie to score 45-plus in back-to-back games since Hall of Famer Walt Bellamy in 1962.
Flagg owns three of the four 45-point performances by a teenager in league history, and two have come in his last two games. He joins Bellamy, Chamberlain, Jordan, Earl Monroe and Lew Alcindor as the only rookies to hit that point total three times. The Hall of Famers all won Rookie of the Year. While Knueppel eclipsed the rookie record with 265 made three-pointers while averaging 18.7 points per game for Charlotte, Flagg is perhaps doing more with less. He leads all rookies with 20.8 points per game – but is doing so on a 25-33 Mavs squad.
Here is the full story from Mavs Roundtable writer Nathan Karseno on the new odds favorite and his recent dominant stretch.
It was a performance featuring the oldest and youngest players in Los Angeles’ LeBron James and Flagg, who also became the oldest and youngest duo to score 30-plus in the same game. It led to James calling Flagg “obviously special” after following his trajectory from AAU ball to Dallas. If Flagg keeps it up, he may have started his runaway for the award.