NBA Rookie of the Year Odds: Did Cooper Flagg's Injury Cost Him on Final Day of the Regular Season?

The 2025-26 season had a Rookie of the Year race for the ages, as former Duke teammates Cooper Flagg and Kon Knueppel battled all season for the award, with the odds flipping in Flagg’s favor at the very end of the regular season.

However, an injury to the star forward on the final day of the regular season limited him to just 10 minutes (he did score 10 points) in Dallas’ win over the Chicago Bulls. Did that end up hurting Flagg’s Rookie of the Year odds?

Cooper Flagg (left ankle sprain) will not return to tonight's game against the Chicago Bulls.
— Mavs PR (@MavsPR) April 13, 2026

The No. 1 overall pick in the 2025 NBA Draft closed as a -175 favorite over Knueppel ahead of Sunday’s action. Knueppel didn’t do a ton to improve his case in a win over the New York Knicks, finishing with 14 points on 5-of-14 shooting (3-for-10 from 3).

That showing was part of a long shooting slump that Knueppel has been in over the last month. He entered Sunday’s game shooting 39.4 percent from the field and averaging 14.1 points per game over his last 11 games, and shot under 44 percent from the field and averaged less than 16.5 points per game since March 1.

Closing NBA Rookie of the Year Odds

Odds via DraftKings Sportsbook

Cooper Flagg: -175
Kon Knueppel: +135

Back on April 3, ESPN’s Tim Bontemps released a straw poll of potential awards voters that completely flipped the odds in this market in Knueppel's favor. The Charlotte Hornets wing was already favored to win Rookie of the Year, but his odds skyrocketed after he received 80 of the 100 first-place votes in the poll.

Knueppel was momentarily a -1800 favorite to win Rookie of the Year at DraftKings, but Flagg quickly changed those odds with some huge scoring performances.

That Friday night (April 3) Flagg dropped 51 points against the Orlando Magic, moving the odds to this:

Kon Knueppel: -350
Cooper Flagg: +240

He followed that up by scoring 45 points against the Los Angeles Lakers on April 5, moving him to thefavorite to win Rookie of the Year. Knueppel fell to a +150 underdog while Flagg was -200 to win the award. Knueppel made up some ground since then, as Flagg was just a -150 favorite prior to dropping 33 points against the Spurs on Friday night. So, this award is still a toss up in the eyes of oddsmakers, but Flagg's big scoring games may have been enough to sway voters in his direction.

Flagg entered the season as a massive favorite to win the Rookie of the Year, though he was not the only impressive rookie. Knueppel, Dylan Harper, VJ Edgecombe and others all made serious cases to be the most impactful rookie, with the No. 2 through No. 4 picks all playing for teams in the playoffs or play-in tournament.

Flagg's Mavericks failed to make the playoffs, struggling mightily after the Mavs decided to blow up the roster at the trade deadline. Flagg entered the final game of the regular season averaging 21.2 points, 6.7 rebounds and 4.6 assists per game while shooting 46.8 percent from the field and 29.6 percent from 3.

He lost a chance to have another big scoring game to sway the public in his direction, but Knueppel's non-descript showing against New York likely didn't gain him any voters.

I'd lean with Flagg to win this award since he still had a historic overall rookie season while being the No. 1 option for the Dallas offense. Still, Knueppel's shooting an impact on a winning team make him a worthy choice if voters go in that direction.

It'll be interesting to see if the late odds movement for Flagg was correct, or if oddsmakers overestimated the impact of his late-season scoring outbursts.

Odds refresh periodically and are subject to change.

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