The best part of the first week of the NBA season is seeing preconceptions, built up over a summer spent consuming season previews, shattered by the hard reality of basketball games. Heading into this season, one such widely shared preconception was that the Rookie of the Year field was scarcely worth discussing, what with Cooper Flagg looking like a purpose-built destroyer for the modern game. He was going to start and play a significant role for a team with real aspirations, the thinking went, so why even take anyone else’s chances seriously? This was occasionally followed by the odd mention that Ace Bailey was going to score a million points for a team that stunk, which voters might enjoy.
Through one week of basketball, Flagg has been perhaps the fourth-most impressive rookie in the league, which has less to do with him than it does the state of the class of 2025. The rookies are going nuts.
