The debate is over. At least for one voter. And given that this particular voter writes the official Kia Rookie Ladder for NBA.com, what he has to say carries real weight heading into the final days of the regular season.
Steve Aschburner, who has covered the NBA since 1980, published his final Rookie Ladder of the 2025-26 season on April 8th and made his position crystal clear from the very first line. His top three choices are Kon Knueppel of the Charlotte Hornets at number one, Cooper Flagg of the Dallas Mavericks at number two, and VJ Edgecombe of the Philadelphia 76ers at number three.
The reasoning behind putting Knueppel ahead of Flagg is detailed, specific, and harder to dismiss than most takes floating around social media right now. It starts with the numbers that do not get talked about enough.
Knueppel’s traditional stats of 18.7 points, 5.3 rebounds and 3.4 assists all yield to Flagg’s. But the margins are not huge. At 2.4 points, 1.3 boards and 1.2 assists, he is about a low level two-way player’s contribution away from Flagg. Equalize their results for minutes played and the difference, which is 1.0 point, 0.9 rebound and 1.0 assist per 36, is even less.
In other words, once you account for the fact that Flagg plays bigger minutes with a higher usage rate on a team built entirely around him, the gap between these two players shrinks to almost nothing. And then when you look at efficiency, it flips entirely.
Knueppel has missed only one game, helping him shatter the NBA record for three pointers by a rookie with 265 through three games remaining, blowing past Keegan Murray’s 206 set in 2022-23, and leading the entire league overall. He is making them at a 43 percent rate, averaging 3.4 makes on 7.9 attempts. Leading the whole NBA in three pointers made as a first year player is the kind of number that belongs in its own category entirely.
Knueppel ranks second among rookies in both effective field goal percentage at 60.8 percent and true shooting at 64 percent. Flagg, owing to his 29.7 percent three point shooting, ranks 18th at 50.4 percent and 14th at 55.2 percent respectively.
There is also a fascinating breakdown of how each player uses the ball. Knueppel’s average time of possession is 2.1 minutes per game, which means he has the ball about 7 percent of his time on the court. Flagg runs the show far more for Dallas with 4.3 minutes of possession per game, or 12.7 percent of his time on the floor. Knueppel is doing more with less every single night and the efficiency numbers confirm it.
But the biggest argument Aschburner makes for Knueppel is the one that has divided basketball fans all season long. Charlotte has been a well-oiled machine since the calendar flipped to 2026. The Hornets are 32-13 since January 2nd with the NBA’s best offensive rating from that point at 121.2, fourth best defensive rating at 109.5, and top net rating at 11.7. Both Knueppel’s game and his personality have provided glue and gravity for a team discovering its potential. His individual ratings reflect it with an offensive rating of 119.4, defensive rating of 112.9, net rating of plus 6.5, and an overall plus minus of plus 326. Flagg in a disjointed Dallas season is at 109.1, 114.8, minus 5.7 and minus 275.
Flagg’s remarkable weekend with a combined 96 points against Orlando and the Lakers, with eight days left in the season, swayed Las Vegas oddsmakers but did not eclipse Knueppel’s body of work for the Ladder.
Aschburner also noted something worth sitting with before the actual votes are counted. Of the past 25 Rookie of the Year winners, 19 of them helped their teams win more that season than in the prior year. Only three saw their team’s record slide backwards. Heading into Tuesday’s slate, Charlotte had more than doubled its victory total from last year, going from 19 wins to 43. Dallas, despite adding the number one pick and potentially a generational talent, has lost 14 more games than last season.
Cooper Flagg has done things this season that no teenager has ever done in this league. Nobody reasonable is denying that. But the official Rookie Ladder has spoken for the final time and the answer at the top is Kon Knueppel. Now we wait to see if the rest of the voters agree.
