Howard Beck started covering the NBA in 1997 and has had a Rookie of the Year award vote most of those seasons. He can’t remember a race like this one.

“This is, I think, the closest Rookie of the Year race that I can remember, and maybe that there has been in a very long time,” said Beck, who writes for The Ringer. “Sometimes it’s really, really close, and I think this one is incredibly close.”

The decision this season has come down to two candidates. On one hand, there’s Cooper Flagg, the Newport native who has looked like the NBA’s next star after being taken first overall by the Dallas Mavericks. On the other, there’s Kon Knueppel, the sweet-shooting, record-setting guard for the Charlotte Hornets.

Both were teammates last season with the Duke Blue Devils, with Flagg celebrating when his friend was drafted with the No. 4 overall pick. Now, they’re dueling each other for one of the league’s top awards, and there’s an argument to be made for both.

Ballots didn’t arrive to writers until mid-afternoon Thursday, a delay caused by Luka Doncic’s and Cade Cunningham’s appeal of the league’s rule requiring a player to play in 65 games in order to be considered for awards.

Beck, who previously wrote for the New York Times and Sports Illustrated, declined to say who he’d vote for, but admitted being torn between the two choices.

“It’s really hard,” he said. “I could talk myself in or out of either of them on a given day, because their cases are just very different.”

Some voters have announced how they’re voting. According to the NBA awards vote tracker compiled by Max Croes, Flagg had 13 first-place votes late Friday night, while Knueppel had 12. Knueppel had received nine second-place votes, Flagg had gotten five.

The case for Flagg, Dallas Morning News writer Mike Curtis said, comes down to the 19-year-old’s talent and value to his team. Flagg led rookies in scoring at 21 points per game and also averaged 4.5 assists (second among rookies), 6.7 rebounds and 1.2 steals.

The plan for Flagg to be part of a playoff team, supported by Anthony Davis, Kyrie Irving and Klay Thompson, was quickly dashed, as Davis battled injury and was traded, Irving never returned from ACL surgery, and Flagg quickly had to become the Mavericks’ focal point.

Curtis announced his vote for Flagg in a Morning News article on Thursday.

“I’m looking at overall impact. I think that Cooper did that top to bottom for this team, in a role that he didn’t necessarily anticipate when he was drafted,” Curtis told the Press Herald. “He had the typical No. 1 pick experience. … He had to go through it. He not only met expectations, but he exceeded expectations.”

Flagg in December became the youngest player in NBA history to score 40 points in a game, and then in April became the youngest to reach 50 with a 51-point outing against Orlando. One game later, he scored 45 against the Lakers.

Chris Broussard of Fox Sports, Rachel Nichols of FS1 and Brian Windhorst of ESPN are among the voters joining Curtis in picking Flagg.

“I had him as the Rookie of the Year a little bit before that, but I think those two performances really stamped it for me,” Curtis said. “Jason Kidd kind of said it perfectly. … He said Kon is a part of a puzzle, and Cooper is the puzzle.”

Other voters don’t see it that way. Bill Simmons of The Ringer, Michael Wilbon of ESPN and Dan Devine of Yahoo are among the voters who have picked Knueppel, who averaged 18.5 points and became the first rookie to lead the NBA in made 3-pointers, with 273.

“I can’t believe Flagg is favored versus Kon, who’s the second-best guy on a playoff team,” Simmons said on a podcast on April 10. “I think (Knueppel’s) the key to that team, in a lot of ways, because he’s the only one that really moves. The gravity that he brings when he moves around, and how defenses react to him, you have to have it for how they play.”

Knueppel’s odds grew when Flagg missed eight games from Feb. 10 to March 5, putting his ability to reach the 65-game mandate in question. Knueppel played all but one of Charlotte’s 82 regular-season games.

“Kon played (11) more games,” Beck said. “That’s not insignificant.”

His team also fared better. While Dallas missed the playoffs at 26-56, Knueppel’s Hornets made it to the play-in rounds at 44-38, a 25-win improvement over last season.

“Cooper clearly is the more skilled player, Cooper is the player with more responsibility, a heavier burden,” Beck said. “… (But) the exercise isn’t who’s the better player in the outline. It’s not ‘Who has the better skill set?’ It’s ‘Who had the better season?’

“I’ve had people who were advocating for Cooper Flagg say ‘Listen, watch them play and it’s not even close.’ … But it’s not who has the higher ceiling. It’s not who will have the better career.”

A tie for the award has happened — three times, in fact, with the latest coming in 2000 when Elton Brand of the Chicago Bulls shared it with Steve Francis of the Houston Rockets.

The vote now allows for second- and third-place votes, which makes the odds of a tie even longer. The final margin, however, could be as thin as it gets.

“It’s just a perfect storm kind of thing,” Beck said. “… It’s rare that we have multiple guys taken near the top of the draft, who are putting up great numbers as a rookie, but in one of their cases is also on a really good team.”