Suddenly, the NBA Rookie of the Year race is a tight one.
With Mavericks wunderkind and longtime award favorite Cooper Flagg sidelined, Hornets first-year star Kon Knueppel has crashed the conversation.
As recently as a week ago, Knueppel was +400 and Flagg was -550 at theScore Bet, in a race that seemed all but over.
Now, with Flagg’s foot sprain lingering and Knueppel playing his best basketball of the season, the pair are co-favorites at -115 heading into Friday’s action.
Bettors have been flocking toward Knueppel over that period, with 92.1 percent of bets and 98.9 percent of the money at theScore Bet going his way during that stretch.
Flagg, who will miss his sixth straight game on Friday night, has been everything Dallas fans could’ve hoped for this season, averaging 20.4 points on 48.2 percent shooting with 6.5 rebounds and 4.1 assists per game.
Knueppel, though, has exceeded expectations, pairing with Flagg to form one of the league’s best rookie duos in recent history.
He’s putting up 19.4 points per game and has already proven to be one of the top shooters in the NBA, averaging 44.2 percent from 3-point land on 5.6 attempts per game and recently breaking the rookie record for threes made in a season.
Complicating matters even further for Flagg is the NBA’s 65-game award rule, which is wreaking havoc on the NBA MVP race as well.
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Friday’s game will be his 10th missed game of the season, with no clear timetable for his return, leaving him just seven more absences before he is disqualified from postseason awards.
If he can pull it off, the comeback will be a long time coming for Knueppel, who was 35/1 to win the award shortly after the NBA Draft.
Flagg, the consensus No. 1 overall pick, was -250 to be the next Rookie of the Year before free agency had even started.
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Dylan Svoboda is a versatile writer and analyst across many sports. He’s particularly knowledgeable about the big three — MLB, the NFL and the NBA.
