NBA Co-Rookie of the Year? How Cooper Flagg-Kon Knueppel debate could add to history of ties, closest races originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here.
The 2026 NBA Rookie of the Year award is expected to come down to the wire between former Duke teammates Kon Knueppel and Cooper Flagg.
Knueppel had a historic rookie season, breaking the rookie record for most three-pointers made while helping lead the Charlotte Hornets to the NBA Play-In Tournament. Flagg, meanwhile, had a strong season for an underwhelming Dallas Mavericks team as he proved to be a franchise cornerstone.
As this race should be close, it may end with a tie between the two at the top of the ballot. There is no tiebreaker, so if they each get the same number of points in voting, they will split the Rookie of the Year award for 2025-26.
That would not be the only time two rookies tied to win the award in NBA history, as it has happened a few times before. Here's a look back at the history of ties in Rookie of the Year awards.
NBA PLAYOFFS HQ:Live NBA scores | NBA playoff schedule | NBA playoff bracket
Since 1953, when the NBA first gave out a Rookie of the Year award, there have only been three ties in the award voting. Those happened in 1971, 1995 and 2000, and featured two worthy candidates for the award.
SN NBA AWARDS:POY (Victor Wembanyama)| ROY (Kon Knueppel) | COY (Joe Mazzulla)
The last time there was a tie in the NBA Rookie of the Year award was in 2000, when Elton Brand and Steve Francis split the award. Brand averaged 20.1 points and 10 rebounds in his first year with the Chicago Bulls, while Francis averaged 18.0 points, 6.6 assists and 5.3 rebounds for the Houston Rockets. However, neither Brand nor Francis made the playoffs that year.
There were 121 votes for this award, with Brand and Francis both getting 58 votes. The other votes were split between Lamar Odom's three votes and Andre Miller's two, as these five votes basically decided the Rookie of the Year tie.
One of the more memorable Rookie of the Year awards came in 1995, as Detroit Pistons' Grant Hill and Dallas Mavericks' Jason Kidd tied to win it. Both players filled up the stat sheet, with Hill averaging 19.9 points, 6.4 rebounds, 5.0 assists and 1.8 steals, and Kidd averaging 11.7 points, 7.7 assists, 5.4 rebounds and 1.9 steals.
This award voting included 105 total votes, as Hill and Kidd both led the way with 43 votes. Glenn Robinson came in third with 15 total votes, while Eddie Jones had two and both Brian Grant and Juwan Howard had one each.
The first time two players tied for this award was in 1971 between David Cowens and Geoff Petrie. Cowens averaged 17.0 points and 15.0 rebounds for the Boston Celtics, while Petrie had 24.8 points, 4.8 assists and 3.4 rebounds for the Portland Trail Blazers.
With 98 points available, both Cowens and Petrie got 36 votes to tie in first. Pete Maravich was the third-place vote-getter with 21 votes, as Calvin Murphy had four votes and Bob Lanier had one vote.
In 2026, media members eligible to vote for the award vote on their first-place, second-place and third-place finishers on the season. Every first-place vote gets five points, every second-place vote gets three points and every third-place vote gets one point, with the highest point-getter winning the award.
All of the NBA's awards were due at 3:00 p.m. ET on Friday, April 17, which means the first four games in the NBA Play-In tournament occurred before the deadline.