The Knueppel conundrum: What happened to Kon’s game at end of Hornets’ season?
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Kon Knueppel averaged 18.5 points and led the NBA with 273 three-pointers this season.
- Knueppel had a dramatic dip in production for Hornets over season’s final 6 games.
- Rookie plans offseason strength work and will work on being more vocal in Year 2.
Kon Knueppel had an inaugural season in which he looked very much like the NBA’s Rookie of the Year.
But the Charlotte Hornets wing didn’t look at all like himself in the season’s final two weeks.
For those who followed the 20-year-old Knueppel closely, what happened in those final six games (four in the regular season, two in the NBA Play-In Tournament) was a shock.
After a season in which he was as consistent as a sunrise, all of Knueppel’s shooting and scoring averages dropped dramatically. In the Hornets’ biggest win of the season — that controversial play-in, 127-126 home overtime victory over Miami on April 14 — Knueppel didn’t score in the fourth quarter or overtime. Not only that, he didn’t even play in the five-minute overtime period.
“It is frustrating to not be on the court at the end of the game,” Knueppel said in his exit interview with the media Saturday, after I asked him about that Heat game. “That sucks. You want to be out there for your team. But that wasn’t the right move. I wasn’t playing well. So we had the right guys out there. And we won the game.”
For the season, Knueppel averaged 18.5 points per game on 47.5% shooting from the floor and 42.5% from 3-point range. He led the entire NBA with 273 3-pointers, becoming the first rookie to do so. He made countless shots coming off screens with defenders draped all over him.
But in those last half-dozen games, his scoring dropped nearly eight points per game, to 10.8. His shooting percentages plummeted, to 29.5% (overall) and 23.5% (3s).
What happened? Did teams figure out how to defend Knueppel? Was the increased physicality of big-time NBA games too much? Did playing in 83 games, after Summer League, preseason and a full season at Duke, finally just wear him down?
Theories abound.
Knueppel doesn’t much want to hear any of them.
“No excuses,” Knueppel said. “I just didn’t make a lot of shots. I shot really well throughout the year, and just got to the point in the (final games) where I just didn’t shoot it great. Sometimes how it rolls…. And you want to be able to shoot well, and you want to have your best stuff, and I just didn’t have it. It’s frustrating. It is a long season. It’s my first time doing it. So some of that, I think, is a learning experience.”
Knueppel will need to improve his body in the offseason, getting stronger to handle all the bangs and bumps he’s getting. That, as Hornets coach Charles Lee noted, is a “global” issue for the Hornets, who saw themselves get “punked” (to use a word that both LaMelo Ball and Grant Williams used to describe losses against Orlando and Detroit, respectively). Charlotte got bullied at season’s end by bigger, stronger teams and needs another bruising big man of its own to help counteract that, as well as internal improvement from its very young roster.
But my thought is somewhat similar to what Charlotte’s Pat Connaughton said Saturday.
“When you look at a quote-unquote dip,” Connaughton said of Knueppel, “that’s all relative. It’s just based off of, obviously, what he showed through the majority of the year.”
Indeed, if the Hornets got 10.8 points per game over the last six games from Tidjane Salaun, the No. 6 overall pick of the 2024 draft, they would have been ecstatic. Instead, Salaun was an afterthought all season. But they got that number from Knueppel, their No. 4 overall pick in 2025 out of Duke. And because he was so good for so long, it feels like a disappointment.
It’s worth noting that what Knueppel did this season was extremely rare, even with the late dip and whether he wins Rookie of the Year or not (the award won’t be announced for at least another week; Knueppel’s former teammate Cooper Flagg is the odds-on favorite).
One of the Hornets’ most thoughtful players and an 11-year NBA veteran, Connaughton offered some perspective. He said that rookies who have the sort of major impact Knueppel did usually come with tremendous physical skills, like LeBron James did.
“I think what’s most impressive about Kon is he obviously has physical attributes that are tremendous, but like — he didn’t jump over anybody this year to dunk, right?” Connaughton said. “He was able to show you, from a pure basketball standpoint, how you can impact the game based off of knowledge on how to play the game… He’s comfortable in who he is. He’s comfortable in the confidence that he has. And he can dice you up eight different ways.”
Knueppel said he plans to go home to Milwaukee for some needed rest and family time over the next few weeks. He is extremely close to his parents and four younger brothers, and the girlfriend he has had since high school now attends Marquette. But he plans to come back to Charlotte for much of the offseason, working out in the weight room as he tries to get stronger for Year 2.
Lee also said he was going to emphasize to Knueppel that he needed to talk more to his teammates, since he so often knows what the right thing to do is but sometimes had a hard time vocally sharing that to older teammates. He has told Knueppel repeatedly that “we need your voice.”
“I think that definitely is an area of improvement,” Knueppel said. “You know, as a rookie, you’re kind of just trying to figure it out, and so that’s hard to do…. And so I think that would definitely be an area of emphasis next year.”
My theory on what happened at the end to Knueppel? Honestly, I thought he looked tired, like his body was betraying him a little bit.
“Everybody hits that rookie wall,” Hornets veteran Miles Bridges said.
I also think teams decided that the game plan for the Hornets in general — and Knueppel in particular — was to hit them (legally) at every opportunity and see what they were going to do about it.
As it turned out, they didn’t do enough.
But is all that enough to make you concerned that Knueppel’s future isn’t as bright as it looked a month ago?
I don’t think so. He’s going to have a great career. He can shoot from deep, his basketball IQ is genius level and he’s going to work like a demon. The rest of it will come.
Bridges would agree.
“I’m really not worried about Kon,” he said. “He’s strong mentally… You know, it’s tough for rookies. We tend to forget they go straight from the college season to draft workouts, to summer league to preseason to regular season. That’s tough on 19- and 20-year-olds…. He helped create that culture change for us. Kon had a great season. I don’t have any bad words for him.”
