Dylan Harper was off to a strong start to his NBA career, as he helped the Spurs to a 5-0 record by hitting the ground running alongside Victor Wembanyama in San Antonio.
With De’Aaron Fox out to start the season, Harper got a chance to show what he can do as the Spurs’ lead guard and averaged 14.0 points, 4.0 rebounds and 3.8 assists per game on 50/35.7/83.3 shooting splits. That was until he exited a loss to the Suns after just 11 minutes of play with a calf strain that Shams Charania reported on Monday will cost him “multiple weeks” of action.
The positive for Harper and the Spurs is that it isn’t a more severe injury, but they’ll now need to proceed cautiously with their young budding star as a calf strain tends to require management for some time even after a player returns to the court.
That, along with Fox’s impending return to the starting lineup, will likely move Harper to the periphery of the NBA’s Rookie of the Year race. That now appears set to be a two-man battle between Dallas’ Cooper Flagg and Philadelphia’s V.J. Edgecombe. At FanDuel Sportsbook, Flagg is now a -110 favorite with Edgecombe close behind at +130, with no one else inside +2000. (Harper fell to +4000 due to his injury.)
Edgecombe being second is a bit surprising in a vacuum, as he has been the unquestionable best rookie in the first two weeks of the season. Edgecombe is averaging 20.3 points, 5.0 assists and 5.0 rebounds per game on 49.5/42.1/82.4 splits and has created an electric Sixers backcourt with Tyrese Maxey. He produces highlight reel plays seemingly every night and has quickly made himself a household name not only in Philadelphia, but for NBA fans around the country.
The question is whether he can keep up the red-hot shooting start (he shot 34% from three at Baylor) and how his role will change whenever Paul George returns to action. Nick Nurse will have to find the right balance between working back in one of his presumptive top stars without messing with the great chemistry Maxey and Edgecombe have created just two weeks in the season.
Flagg being the heavy favorite for the award coming into the season means oddsmakers are wary of moving him out of the top spot in ROY odds this early in the season despite Edgecombe clearly leaping him in on-court production. The No. 1 overall pick has been thrust into an ill-fitting point guard role in Dallas and asked to sink or swim by Jason Kidd. The goal is to make him a better, more confident playmaker with the ball in his hands long-term, but in the immediate he has struggled as expected with such a hefty on-ball workload.
Flagg is averaging 13.8 points, 6.5 rebounds and 3.0 assists per game on 37.3/28.6/100.0 splits in Dallas, as he’s struggled with efficiency while being tasked with creating most of his own offense. There are plenty of reasons for optimism that Flagg will be producing at the level he was expected to by the time this season ends.
His lone season at Duke showed that he is more than capable of shaking off a slow start and dominating once he gets comfortable. On top of that, at some point, Flagg should cede the point guard role back to Kyrie Irving, which should help his shooting numbers. With so much of the season left in front of him, there’s plenty of time for him to put up the kind of stats to pull closer to Edgecombe.
The battle between those two for Rookie of the Year will be exciting to watch all season. At some point in the not too distant future Harper will be back on the court and will throw his hat in the ring for All-Rookie team honors in what has proven early on to be a quality rookie class, but his injury and the role question when Fox is back in the rotation make it hard to see a path to ROY. Spurs fans will be less worried about that and more excited about the prospects of what the team can look like whenever he and Fox are healthy given the Spurs have thrust themselves into the playoff conversation out West with their hot start.