By Zach Powell, Jeff Maillet, Jared Weiss and Sam Vecenie

The Athletic has live coverage of the 2025 NBA Draft.

The Charlotte Hornets selected Kon Knueppel with the fourth pick in Wednesday night’s NBA Draft. Knueppel averaged 14.4 points, four rebounds and 2.7 assists in his freshman season at Duke.

While Knueppel typically played a wingman role alongside teammate Cooper Flagg, he never shied away from elite ACC competition. Knueppel thrived in his only season at Duke, thanks to his high basketball IQ.

Known for his ability to stretch the floor with his 3-point shooting, Knueppel, 19, averaged 21 points, 5.7 rebounds, and 4.7 assists in the ACC Tournament, earning him MVP honors. He is only the eighth freshman to achieve that award.

The 6-foot-7 Milwaukee native started all 39 games for Duke, which tied the school record in a single season for a freshman, shooting over 91 percent from the charity stripe and 40.6 percent from beyond the arc. Duke’s season ended with a devastating loss to Houston in the Final Four.

How Knueppel fits with Hornets

The Hornets are a great landing spot for Kon Knueppel. He adds a connector into a dynamic offense that badly needs one.

LaMelo Ball and Brandon Miller bring a ton of creativity, but the team needs someone who can make plays in the seams off the movement the stars generate and bring defensive consistency to the starting group. The Hornets were sixth in the league in 3-point attempts per game before the All-Star break, but were just 26th in actually making them. They need a knockdown shooter on the move who can make good reads and bring their offense better flow. —Jared Weiss, NBA staff writer

Draft guide summary

Knueppel gets unfairly characterized as just a shooter. The versatility of his game makes him such an attractive prospect. It’s hard to find players in the NBA who can dribble, pass, shoot, make decisions and defend on top of having solid positional size. Knueppel proved he could do all those things this season, and that’s why I believe he can become the kind of player who helps a team win.

He’ll likely be an elite shooter who can get to his shot from a variety of situations. That’s the skill he’ll be able to build his career on early. As defenders close out on him, he should be able to add to his game and build off that threat. We know he can make decisions and pass, and we know he’s comfortable putting the ball on the deck. Realistically, the only thing I’m worried about with Knueppel is the defensive end, where the slow feet might hinder him at the highest levels, but it likely won’t hurt him much in the regular season.

It’s possible I end up looking silly, and Knueppel becomes nothing more than a solid rotation player. However, my read is that he’ll become the kind of starting-caliber wing who helps you win a lot. In the modern NBA, especially if teams are going to keep allowing the physicality to escalate, this is the kind of player I want on my team in the biggest moments because he is purely additive to those around him. — Sam Vecenie

From the Draft Confidential

Eastern Conference scout No. 1: “Saw him against Cooper in AAU two years ago. They were both playing on smaller teams. He’s a good shooter, but he knows how to play. He’s not a great athlete, but he knows how to play on the defensive end, too. He doesn’t get taken advantage of a lot. I have a hard (time) thinking of him as a top-10 player. Maybe he is, because he’s safer. Is he better than Aaron Nesmith? No. And Aaron Nesmith is in the right spot (now); he wasn’t initially. You’re picking him to be a knock-down shooter, and I think he can do that. If you put him on the Celtics, he would fit. If he was in Charlotte, would he make a difference? No.”

College head coach No. 1 (his team played Duke): “He was way better than I thought he was. I saw him a little bit in high school, and he was a good player, but I wondered how that would translate (in college), especially with the athleticism. He really knows how to play. To me, he’s in the same boat as a Gordon Hayward, before Gordon got hurt. He’s better with the ball than you think. … He understands how to move without it. He can put it on the floor a little better than you think. He’s bigger than you think. He’s more athletic than you think. He’s super, super competitive.

“He’s not a guy that brings it up all the time, but he can help you initiate some offense. He can play some second-side ball screen stuff. You can run him off stuff, kind of like what Portland used to do with Dame (Lillard) and CJ McCollum, and then get him in ball screens that way. Because of his size, he can pass it. I think he’s a really, really good basketball player. The thing I would have concerns with him is that’s a different level of athlete up there. Who would he guard up there?”

Eastern Conference executive No. 1: “He’s going to at least stick his nose in there. When I saw him at Jordan Brand, I told someone, this guy was talking about (2023 Duke commit) TJ Power, what a great shooter he is. And Kon’s a better shooter than TJ I told him, “They’ve got Kon Knueppel coming in, and he’s going to take those minutes.” — David Aldridge

(Note: Power transferred to Virginia after one season in Durham.)

(Photo: Jamie Squire / Getty Images)