Excuse me, why is there a ROY Debate?

The debate between Kon Knueppel and Cooper Flagg for Rookie of the Year shouldn’t be a debate

There is a weird tension that exists within Rookie of the Year voting. The first is the tension to select the most outstanding rookie. And the second is to award the rookie who will end with the most noteworthy career. It’s an award that isn’t just about the present, but also about the future. And it’s due to this tension that the 2025-26 Rookie of the Year has suddenly gone up for debate.

Just a year ago, Cooper Flagg and Kon Knueppel were college roommates, they led Duke to the Final Four, and then entered the NBA draft after one highly successful season in college. Flagg went first overall as the most hyped American prospect since Zion Williamson, while Knueppel was a somewhat surprising fourth overall selection, but both have more than lived up to their draft status. They’ll be one and two on every Rookie of the Year ballot, but who will win the award is far from done and dusted, allegedly.

While I don’t like what prediction markets have become, they unfortunately contain some relevant information. According to Polymarket, in early April, Kon Knueppel held 94% odds to win Rookie of the Year, compared to Flagg at 6%. Since then, the odds have nearly flipped, and as of today, Flagg’s odds are 66% to Knueppel’s 31%. So what happened? Well, not much, because less than a week just isn’t that much time.

Since Knueppel hit his high point, Flagg has strung together two admittedly excellent games. Against the Magic and Lakers, he scored a combined 96 points over two games, while Knueppel committed the deadly sin of having an off-shooting night. However, two games shouldn’t be enough to swing such overwhelming odds for a full-season award. Unless, of course, the award isn’t really about your season.

Based on full-season statistics, there is no debate who has been the best rookie. Knueppel is averaging 18.7 points per game on a True Shooting percentage (TS%) of 64%. That’s the 18th-best figure in the league and 11th among non-centers, which includes Jimmy Butler and Giannis Antetokounmpo, who’ve both played under 40 games. His combination of elite shooting efficiency and solid playmaking (3.4 assists per game) has led to an offensive BPM of 3.4. That ranks 21st in the league, tied with Austin Reaves, and is just ahead of Jalen Johnson, Devin Booker, and Keyonte George.

The track record for rookies with such a high OBPM winning the award is ridiculously high. Since 1973-74, the first year BPM is tracked, there have been 24 rookies to hit or eclipse an OBPM of 2.5 or higher, and they basically all won Rookie of the Year, unless they faced another rookie with an OBPM of 2.5 or higher.

The seasons with multiple players are highlighted, and as you can see, if you are as productive as Knueppel has been, unopposed, you win the award, no questions asked. The only player who fell short in this regard was Rudy Fernandez in 2008-09, but he only averaged 25.9 minutes and 10.4 points per game. Basically, if you play starter-level minutes and hit 15 points per game, with an OBPM of 2.5 or higher as a rookie, you win Rookie of the Year, and Knueppel ought to be no different. As a side note, Arvydas Sabonis should have won the 1995-96 award, but seeing as he was a 31-year-old with over a decade of professional basketball experience who averaged 23.8 minutes per game, I understand why Damon Stoudamire took it home.

Now, it isn’t like Cooper Flagg has secretly been awful this season. He’s averaging 21.1 points and 4.6 assists per game on a 55.2% TS%. His lack of efficiency, his TS% ranks 160th, is offset somewhat by his usage (26.6%, 32nd) and has led to a healthy 1.0 OBPM, which ranks 71st in the league. It cannot be overstated just how promising Flagg’s rookie season has been, but it also cannot be overstated just how far behind it is of Knueppel’s.

When you throw in the fact that Knueppel has played in 78 games to Flagg’s 66, and that he has been integral to the Hornets’ sizzling turnaround, it’s really hard to make a case for Flagg. Sure, his defense is probably better than Knueppel’s, but it’s not that much better. At the end of the day, the only edge Flagg has over Knueppel is that he looks primed to be the better player long term, which isn’t supposed to be a factor.

One issue that looms over the award is history itself. The Rookie of the Year has traditionally been a pretty excellent harbinger of a Hall of Fame career. Between 1952-53 and 2002-03, 34 of the 50 winners found their way to the Hall of Fame, and it’s not like it has fallen off since. The Rookie of the Year winners among currently active or ineligible for a Hall vote include: LeBron James, Chris Paul, Derrick Rose, Blake Griffin, Kyrie Irving, Damian Lillard, Karl-Anthony Towns, Luka Doncic, Ja Morant, LaMelo Ball, Scottie Barnes, Paolo Banchero, Victor Wembanyama, and Stephon Castle. The reality is voters tend to be swayed by precedent more than they’d readily admit. It’s why, for so long, team record was such a powerful predictor of MVP, but with Rookie of the Year, there is one big modern issue.

Beginning in the mid-90s, the NBA experienced an influx of players who made the jump straight from high school. This had the knock-on effect of seeing more and more players enter the league after a limited time in college. For the first time in NBA history, the best prospects stopped necessarily being the best rookies, a trend that has only accelerated in recent decades.

Fortunately, most years, voters don’t actually have to think that hard about this dynamic. The best rookie is routinely the best long-term prospect. Victor Wembanyama beat out Chet Holmgren for rookie of the year, not because people thought he’d be better in five years, but because he was better that year. But this season, we have the absolute perfect storm of current rookie production against future upside. However, even here, there is a caveat.

While I believe Flagg will end up being a better player than Knueppel, did you see the company Knueppel’s rookie season has put him in? The only player 20 and younger to best his OBPM in their rookie season is Luka Doncic. The only players, outside of Knueppel, who didn’t make an All-NBA team in their career were Rudy Fernandez, Damon Stoudamire, Alvan Adams, Sabonis, and Steve Francis. And to be fair, Francis probably should have made one in 2000-01, Sabonis basically spent his career on a minutes restriction, and Adams was a criminally underrated player throughout the ‘70s. Just because draft experts didn’t think Knueppel had multi-time All-NBA potential doesn’t mean he don’t.

Fortunately, I think the voters will get this right, and the market is just reacting wildly to Flagg having some massive games. Tim Bontemps’ MVP straw poll included a Rookie of the Year poll, and Knueppel received 80 of the 100 first-place votes, which sounds about right. Flagg, in most years, would run away with Rookie of the Year, but this ain’t most years. Knueppel has legitimately had one of the greatest rookie seasons in modern history, and he deserves to go down in history for the accomplishment. We don’t need Rookie of the Year to reward the best prospect; that’s what the first overall pick is for.

For any inquiries about work, discussion, and the like, you can email me at nevin.l.brown@gmail.com.