Dallas Mavericks forward Cooper Flagg won the 2025-26 NBA Rookie of the Year award, edging Charlotte Hornets guard Kon Knueppel in the voting. Flagg received 56 first-place votes to Knueppel's 44, with the two separated by 26 points in a ballot of 100 reporters and broadcasters who ranked their top three rookies, awarding five points for first place, three for second and one for third.

VJ Edgecombe was the third finalist and received no first-place votes. Flagg, selected first overall by Dallas in the NBA draft, became the second-youngest player to win the award, behind LeBron James. Knueppel was selected fourth overall.

Flagg averaged 21.0 points, 6.7 rebounds, 4.5 assists and 1.2 steals per game and led all rookies in scoring during the 2025-26 season. He became the first rookie since Michael Jordan in the 1984-85 season to lead his team in points, rebounds, assists and steals, and joined Jordan as the only rookies to record multiple games of at least 45 points since the NBA-ABA merger in 1976-77.

Flagg scored 51 points for the Mavericks against the Orlando Magic, becoming the first teenager to score 50 points in an NBA game. He had set the previous single-game scoring record for a teenager with 49 points against the Charlotte Hornets in January. He also became the youngest player in NBA history to record games with 35, 40, 45 and 50 points, and the youngest to record at least 10 assists in a game.

Flagg entered the league with Anthony Davis sidelined at the start of the season and Kyrie Irving kept out for the entire year by the Mavericks. "I think dealing with that and adjusting and kind of getting thrown in on the fly right away like that helped me long-term and throughout the season just getting really comfortable. I think I grew in a lot of different areas," Flagg said.

Flagg and Knueppel were former college teammates at Duke and became the first such pair to finish first and second in rookie scoring since Emeka Okafor and Ben Gordon in 2004-05. "I think also I was watching Kon just because that's one of my brothers. We had such a good connection, and we're gonna be there for each other for the rest of our lives," Flagg said.

Knueppel averaged 18.5 points, 5.3 rebounds and 3.4 assists per game while shooting 42.5% from three-point range, joining Larry Bird and Paul Pierce as the only NBA rookies to average 15 points and five rebounds with over 40% three-point shooting. He became the first rookie to lead the NBA in three-pointers made, with 273. The Hornets won 44 games before being eliminated by the Magic in the final round of the play-in tournament.