Dallas Mavericks' Cooper Flagg Wins 2025-26 NBA Rookie of the Year Award

Dallas Mavericks forward Cooper Flagg won the 2025-26 NBA Rookie of the Year award, as announced on Monday. Flagg, the No. 1 overall pick in the 2025 NBA Draft, received 56 first-place votes and 412 total points from a panel of 100 media members. His former Duke roommate finished second with 44 first-place votes and 386 points, a margin of 26 points.

Philadelphia 76ers guard VJ Edgecombe was the third finalist for the award.

Flagg averaged 21.0 points, 6.7 rebounds and 4.5 assists per game during the season. He led all qualifying rookies in scoring. He also set a record for a teenager with 49 points earlier in the year. Flagg is the first rookie since Michael Jordan in the 1984-85 season to lead his team in points, rebounds, assists and steals.

Flagg and his former Duke roommate were first and second in rookie scoring, the first former college teammates to do so since Emeka Okafor and Ben Gordon in 2004-05. The vote was one of the closest in the award's history. The former roommate, who plays for the Charlotte Hornets, averaged 18.5 points, 5.3 rebounds and 3.4 assists, while leading the league in three-pointers made with 273 and shooting 42.5% from beyond the arc.

>"I see the games every night. I can check the box scores," — Cooper Flagg, on monitoring his former roommate's performance (The Guardian).

The Mavericks selected Flagg first overall, expecting to contend for the playoffs. The team started slowly due to injuries and made a trade midseason, eventually deciding to sit a key player for the rest of the year. Despite the team's slide in the standings, Flagg recorded multiple games of at least 45 points, joining Michael Jordan as the only rookies to do so since the 1976-77 NBA-ABA merger.

>"I think you talk about pressure and things like that, this season was a lot different going into it and what I was expecting and how the season ended up turning out," — Cooper Flagg, reflecting on the season (The Guardian).

Flagg led Duke to the Final Four in the previous college season before entering the NBA. The former roommate became the first rookie to lead the league in three-pointers and joined Larry Bird and Paul Pierce as the only rookies to average 15 points and five rebounds while shooting over 40% from three.

Charlotte won 44 games under the former roommate's contributions but was eliminated in the play-in tournament by Orlando.