For those who don't have access, here's the key part:
"…You can live with Okoro beating you. But human instinct says never to leave a Hall of Famer.
And so, reputation has been on my mind, specifically as I watch the Charlotte Hornets and their rookie star Kon Knueppel tear up the rest of the NBA. Charlotte is 30-13 since Jan. 3 and owns the league’s best net rating over that time. (I stupidly forgot to include Hornets head coach Charles Lee as an obvious candidate for Coach of the Year during an awards column I penned earlier this week.)
One of its many surprises is Knueppel — not just because he’s the Rookie of the Year favorite or even because he’s already one of the league’s best players. It’s because respect is already there in a way that most rookies don’t receive it.
Knueppel has downed the most 3-pointers in the NBA this season, nailing 43 percent of his attempts from range. But it’s not common for a rookie on a team no one saw coming, especially not when it was sitting at 16-28 at one point, to inspire this much fear.
When Knueppel is near, defenders won’t move away from him, not even during conventional help situations.
Earlier this week, during the fourth quarter of a rare Hornets loss, point guard LaMelo Ball split a double-team at the top of the key and headed to the rim. With two defenders behind him, Ball could have caused the Boston Celtics to scramble. Normally, help would have come from the corner.
But in this case, Celtics guard Payton Pritchard stared at Ball, who frolicked to the hoop for a lefty layup. Pritchard was guarding Knueppel, whom he could not leave alone in the corner.
Knueppel leads the league in BBall-Index’s “off-ball gravity” analytic, which measures the exact concept explained above. Only two players since the site began tracking the statistic in 2015-16 have churned out seasons with greater off-ball gravity: Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson.
The most impressive part of Knueppel’s first professional season isn’t the production. It’s the reaction he’s inspired from his peers."
1 comment
*white hole 😂