{"id":706029,"date":"2026-04-08T22:38:13","date_gmt":"2026-04-08T22:38:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/706029\/"},"modified":"2026-04-08T22:38:13","modified_gmt":"2026-04-08T22:38:13","slug":"kon-knueppel-reveals-what-would-make-his-rookie-season-a-success","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/706029\/","title":{"rendered":"Kon Knueppel reveals what would make his rookie season a success"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>April 8, 2026, 2:30 p.m. ET<\/p>\n<p>Rookie Kon Knueppel has emerged as a top candidate for the NBA Rookie of the Year Award.Knueppel stated that making the playoffs would define a successful first season for him.The Charlotte Hornets have secured at least a spot in the NBA Play-In Tournament.Charlotte&#8217;s path to the playoffs depends on their final seeding in the standings.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Former <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/basketball\/ncaab\/teams\/duke-blue-devils\/1388\/\" data-autotag=\"d9e0b712-2f57-4d7c-998e-25a7ac4fbc0d\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" data-t-l=\":b|e|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\">Duke<\/a> star Kon Knueppel has exceeded expectations in his rookie season with the <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/basketball\/nba\/teams\/charlotte-hornets\/5312\/\" data-autotag=\"e256e96c-b58f-4300-a36c-9b2c6d336797\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" data-t-l=\":b|e|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\">Charlotte Hornets<\/a>, positioning himself among the leading candidates for the NBA Rookie of the Year Award along with former Duke teammate Cooper Flagg.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">That said, Knueppel&#8217;s main focus has always been on winning.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Ahead of Tuesday&#8217;s game against the Boston Celtics, Knueppel <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/HornetsReddit\/status\/2041670243060212019\" data-t-l=\":b|z|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\" rel=\"nofollow\">spoke<\/a> about what would make his first NBA season a success.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">&#8220;Just get in the playoffs,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Obviously, that&#8217;s what we want to do. Hopefully, we can avoid the play-in and get in that way, but that would be a successful year for me.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">With three games remaining, the Hornets are at least locked into an NBA Play-In Tournament position and currently sit ninth.<\/p>\n<p>Need a news break? <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" data-t-l=\":body nav (play)|e|auto spike click:5|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_sp_a\" href=\"https:\/\/play.usatoday.com\/?itm_source=SPIKE&amp;itm_campaign=PLAYSPIKE&amp;itm_medium=ONSITE\">Check out the all new PLAY hub with puzzles, games and more!<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">If they are to finish ninth or 10th, they&#8217;ll need to win consecutive games to reach the postseason.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">If Charlotte were to finish in seventh or eighth, they&#8217;d have two opportunities to earn one win that&#8217;d send them to the playoffs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"April 8, 2026, 2:30 p.m. ET Rookie Kon Knueppel has emerged as a top candidate for the NBA&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":706030,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3777],"tags":[72400,7,684,473,3878,685,6,74643,73480,72404,72468,72598,73149,83632,72444,72422,72405,72406,72558,72403],"class_list":{"0":"post-706029","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-charlotte-hornets","8":"tag-accessfree","9":"tag-basketball","10":"tag-charlotte","11":"tag-charlotte-hornets","12":"tag-charlottehornets","13":"tag-hornets","14":"tag-nba","15":"tag-sstssportscollegedukemens-basketball","16":"tag-sstsnmens-basketball","17":"tag-tagbasketball","18":"tag-tagcharlotte-hornets","19":"tag-tagcooper-flagg","20":"tag-tagduke-blue-devils-mens-basketball","21":"tag-tagkon-knueppel","22":"tag-tagnational-sports","23":"tag-tagnba","24":"tag-tagoverall-positive","25":"tag-tagsports-news","26":"tag-tagstory-highlights-ai-enabled","27":"tag-typestory"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116371489385146884","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706029","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=706029"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/706029\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/706030"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=706029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=706029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=706029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}