Kon Knueppel Falls Short in Rookie of the Year Race - Why Voters Made A Defensible Choice

Knueppel's rookie campaign was nothing short of historic, but it wasn't enough to steal the ROY from Cooper Flagg.

Kevin Jairaj-Imagn Images

Kon Knueppel's rookie campaign was as good as it gets.

When the Charlotte Hornets selected the former Duke Blue Devil with the fourth overall pick in the 2025 NBA Draft, they knew exactly what they were getting: a high-feel, high-motor, competitive freak that can shoot the cover off the ball who could fundamentally change the foundation they were building by outworking everyone in the organization.

What they didn't expect was for Knueppel to produce the way he did in year one.

Not only did Knueppel set the NBA rookie record for three-point makes in a year. Not only did Knueppel break Kemba Walker's single-season made threes mark. He also led the entire league in three-pointers made as a 20-year old, spearheading a miraculous midseason turnaround alongside LaMelo Ball and Brandon Miller in the process.

In any other year, Knueppel, the four-time Eastern Conference Rookie of the Month, would be hoisting the coveted Rookie of the Year hardware tonight. It just so happened that he entered the NBA at the same time as his college teammate who somehow exceeded the lofty expectations that have been hanging over his head since he was a teenager in Maine.

On Monday night, the NBA announced that Cooper Flagg was named the NBA's Rookie of the Year in one of the tightest races since the voting structure changed in 2003.

Hornets fans aren't going to want to hear this, but Flagg is a worthy recepient of the honor.

	Cooper Flagg	Kon Knueppel
Games Played	70	81
Points per Game	21.0	18.5
Rebounds per Game	6.7	5.3
Assists per Game	4.5	3.4
Steals per Game	1.2	0.7
Blocks per Game	0.9	0.2
Shooting Splits	46/29/82	47/42/86
Box Plus Minus	1.4	2.8
EPM	-0.1	+2.6

The debate between Flagg and Knueppel is an age-old one: advanced numbers versus counting stats. But let me first say this...

Both players were phenomenal this season.

In terms of advanced analytics, which heavily favor efficiency, Knueppel is the runaway winner. The way Kon's gravity improved Charlotte's offense is easily quantified by numbers like BPM and EPM -- catch-all metrics that prop up players who quantifiably impact winning on both ends. Knueppel was a lynchpin of Charlotte's top-five offense, and the numbers grade him out as exactly that.

On the other hand, Flagg racked up counting stats in the Mavericks' lost season. Head coach Jason Kidd threw the number one overall pick into the fire, leaning on Flagg as the team's primary ball handler on day one of the season. Cooper's efficiency took a major hit, but his game-to-game improvements coalesced into an impressive closing kick that elongated the gap between his and Knueppel's per-game numbers and left a positive taste in voter's mouths.

Knueppel's struggles in the Play-In Tournament were unfairly held against him, but there's no denying that the sharpshooter's late-season sins (Knueppel's effective field goal percentage of 55.0% from March 1 to the end of the season was a stark 5.3 percentage points worse than his season-long number) swayed enough minds of the selection committee to send the award to the Lone Star State.

Kon's late-season struggles, Cooper's late-season-surge, and the preconceived notions about both of them were the defining factors in this race. It would have taken a truly sizeable difference in on-court production for Knueppel to overcome the intangibles working in Flagg's favor, and unfortuantely the gap he built in the first five months of the season was shrunk by Cooper's historic run in April.

Bicker all you want about Flagg's on-ball opportunities in Dallas leading to his bloated stats -- no rookie in league history dropped 51 and 45 points in back-to-back games like Flagg did in the last few weeks of the season.

The stories of Knueppel and Flagg's careers have many pages left to write, but the opening chapters delivered us an all-time duel that should be celebrated, not consternated. Knueppel, hailed for his competitive nature, is likely to send a congratulatory text to his college roommate and get back in the gym to make sure he doesn't fall short of Flagg again.

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