DALLAS — If you are a Dallas Mavericks fan who likes Cooper Flagg, you do not want him to win the NBA’s Rookie of the Year award.

To win that award as a Maverick means Flagg will be traded either entering, and or in, the prime of his career. Historically, the Mavs just do not have much use for their ROY winners.

Jason Kidd shared the award with Grant Hill in 1995, and in 1996 the Mavericks traded Kidd to the Phoenix Suns. Luka Doncic won the award in 2019, and you may have heard the Mavericks dealt him to the L.A. Lakers in 2024.

There is good reason to be “optimistic” that Flagg will be robbed of the award he should win; there’s a decent chance he will be punished because of the company he was forced to keep.

The Mavericks season was humanely put down on Sunday night, thus ending Flagg’s rookie year during which he exceeded the absurd and unreasonable expectations hoisted on him when he was selected with the first overall pick in the 2025 NBA draft. He is 19, and already one of the better players in the NBA.

He’s a kid who can’t drink legally, but he is routinely abusing grown men in a man’s league.

Flagg finished leading his team in points, rebounds, assists and steals to become the first rookie to achieve that feat since Michael Jordan did it for the Chicago Bulls in 1984-‘85. That fact alone should make Flagg the winner of the NBA’s Rookie of the Year award, but this is a legit debate because of Charlotte’s Kon Knueppel’s teammates.

Why Flagg will finish second in the NBA’s Rookie of the Year voting

Selected fourth overall out of Duke, Knueppel went to one of the worst franchises not in the NBA but in sports. The last time the Hornets made the playoffs was in 2016.

The last time the franchise won a playoff series was 2002. This is the longest active drought in the NBA.

With Knueppel making 3-pointers from every possible distance this season, the Hornets finished with 44 wins, and are in the play-in round of the NBA’s postseason. This is the second time in the last 10 years this team finished with a winning record.

The Hornets’ success is not entirely because of Knueppel. With teammates LaMelo Ball and Brandon Miller, Knueppel has space to operate, and shoot. He’s third on his team in scoring, is tied for fourth in the NBA in 3-pointers, and makes 43% of those attempts.

A Rookie of the Year vote for Kon Knueppel is perfectly reasonable, logical and acceptable.

The Hornets are finally winning, due in large part because of him. That’s a hard detail to ignore, or minimize.

Why Flagg should be the NBA’s Rookie of the Year

In an effort to sway the 100 sports journalists from the U.S. and Canada who vote on this award, the Mavs went with an old school, college Heisman Trophy voting campaign complete with swag, and material highlighting Flagg’s season.

Unlike so many players across every sport who insist such individual awards don’t matter to them, after the season ended on Sunday night Flagg said the quiet part out loud.

“I would say (the award) is pretty important,” he told the media gathered at the American Airlines Center. “I think all rookies want to win that award, and to come out and play for that every single night. It’s definitely important. I think I went out there and put my best foot forward every single night and do what I could to put my name up there.”

Flagg was drafted by a team that was far worse than ever projected, and he had to carry it under impossible circumstances.

Kyrie Irving was never available. The man Flagg was supposed to play next to this season, forward Anthony Davis, appeared in 20 games before the team traded him to Washington.

The other veterans who were supposed to take something off Flagg, like Daniel Gafford, P.J. Washington and Dereck Lively II, all missed prolonged periods because of injury. The Mavs’ point guard situation was a mess until Ryan Nembhard proved to be the surprise of the season by developing into a nice player.

All No. 1 overall picks are expected to do too much, and Flagg exceeded all stupid expectations times 10. The team started bad, and joined the trend of deliberately trying to lose, which, in this case, could hurt his chances to win the award that will be announced around May 1.

Flagg should be the NBA’s Rookie of the Year, but his Duke teammate may collect it because he was on a better team.

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