The Charlotte Hornets finally have something to smile about after years in the basement of the NBA. This season, they have exceeded all expectations, currently holding a 41-36 and the eighth seed in the Eastern Conference. They’re just 1.5 games out of a playoff spot to avoid the Play-In Tournament.<\/p>\n
While their core has been spectacular as a whole, the impact of rookie guard Kon Knueppel has been a driving force in the Hornets’ graduation from a lottery dweller to a postseason team. The No. 4 overall pick from the 2025 NBA Draft has been an extremely impressive, with a good chance to walk away with the Rookie of the Year award.<\/p>\n
The Duke product most recently made history in Thursday’s 127-107 win over the Phoenix Suns. Amid dropping 20 points, Knueppel set Charlotte’s franchise record for three-pointers made in a season at 261. That number also leads the entire league.<\/p>\n
Against the Suns, the 6-foot-6 wing shot 7-for-14 from the field and 4-for-9 from deep to go along with three rebounds and two assists. He also had just one turnover with a box plus-minus of +5.<\/p>\n
Knueppel also broke Keegan Murray’s (Sacramento Kings) all-time rookie record for three made earlier in the season. Kemba Walker previously owned the Hornets’ season three-point record with 260 threes, set back in 2019.<\/p>\n
Coming into the night, the 20-year-old needed exactly four to break the record. He was a sniper from the outside, but he also showed off some slashing ability, notching six points in the paint and two from the free-throw line.<\/p>\n
Kneppel is in competition with his former Blue Devils teammates, Cooper Flagg (Dallas Mavericks), for the Rookie of the Year award. The 6-foot-9 forward is putting up 20.3 points, 6.6 rebounds, 4.5 assists and 1.2 steals per game this season, while Knueppel is averaging 18.8 points, 5.4 rebounds and 3.4 assists on 48-43-86 shooting splits.<\/p>\n
While Flagg has been scoring, rebounding and defending slightly more than his former college co-star, Knueppel has had more of an impact on winning. The Hornets will finish .500 or better with 41 wins at the moment, while Flagg’s Mavericks are a lottery team once again at 24-52.<\/p>\n
The future is already bright in Charlotte, but if the Hornets’ newest star can continue to impact them in the postseason, they’ll continue to attract fans around the NBA. Knueppel is leading that charge, becoming the face of a franchise reborn.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Charlotte Hornets finally have something to smile about after years in the basement of the NBA. This…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":697143,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5],"tags":[7,6,12],"class_list":{"0":"post-697142","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba-draft","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-nba","10":"tag-nba-draft"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116344384976808858","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697142","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=697142"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/697142\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/697143"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=697142"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=697142"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=697142"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}