{"id":474117,"date":"2025-12-15T04:48:21","date_gmt":"2025-12-15T04:48:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/474117\/"},"modified":"2025-12-15T04:48:21","modified_gmt":"2025-12-15T04:48:21","slug":"kon-knueppel-labeled-the-face-of-the-hornets-per-nba-insider-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/474117\/","title":{"rendered":"Kon Knueppel labeled the ‘face of the Hornets’ per NBA insider"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kon Knueppel labeled the ‘face of the Hornets’ per NBA insider<\/a> originally appeared on The Sporting News<\/a>. Add The Sporting News as a Preferred Source by clicking here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Although they’ve struggled to rack up wins amid injuries, the Charlotte Hornets<\/a> have enjoyed early success from their most recent rookie class. Kon Knueppel is the early favorite to win the Rookie of the Year award, while Sion James has played impactful minutes on the defensive end. Ryan Kalkbrenner looks to be a defensive stopper in front of the rim and an efficient inside shooter on offense. Lastly, Liam McNeeley has taken some time to crack in the rotation, but has proved to be an excellent shooter off the bench, averaging over 40% from three-point range.<\/p>\n

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With their rookie class developing as well as any in the league, the Charlotte Hornets are starting to rethink<\/a> things. According to<\/a> NBA insider Michael Scotto, the Charlotte Hornets now view Kon Knueppel as the face of the franchise. Although they intend to build around Knueppel, the Hornets are hopeful to see success from a core including Knueppel, Brandon Miller and LaMelo Ball.<\/p>\n

Once regarded the main focal point in Charlotte, LaMelo Ball has been criticized for his seriousness, his shot selection and his defensive effort.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, Knueppel has done nothing but exceed expectations. Thus far, he’s proven to be more than just a shooter, something that draft experts thought he may only be. Additionally, he’s impressed on the defensive end, another area of his game that analysts were concerned with.<\/p>\n

Over his last two games, Knueppel has scored 62 points, following up 33 on Friday with 29 in Sunday’s road win against the Cleveland Cavaliers<\/a>.<\/p>\n

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Charlotte will return to action this Thursday against the Atlanta Hawks<\/a>.<\/p>\n

More NBA news:<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Kon Knueppel labeled the ‘face of the Hornets’ per NBA insider originally appeared on The Sporting News. Add…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":474118,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3777],"tags":[208,7,970,684,473,3878,193,68318,685,968,966,921,7057,6,972,1560,693],"class_list":{"0":"post-474117","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-charlotte-hornets","8":"tag-atlanta-hawks","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-brandon-miller","11":"tag-charlotte","12":"tag-charlotte-hornets","13":"tag-charlottehornets","14":"tag-cleveland-cavaliers","15":"tag-defensive-stopper","16":"tag-hornets","17":"tag-kon-knueppel","18":"tag-lamelo-ball","19":"tag-liam-mcneeley","20":"tag-michael-scotto","21":"tag-nba","22":"tag-ryan-kalkbrenner","23":"tag-sion-james","24":"tag-victor-wembanyama"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115721778250052634","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=474117"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/474117\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/474118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=474117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=474117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=474117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}