Hornets NBA Summer League player preview: Kon Knueppel

What should Hornets fans hope to see from their number four overall pick in Vegas?

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Charlotte Hornets' fans will get a chance to see their newly acquired rookies suit up in purple and teal in short time when the team tips off their Las Vegas Summer League on Friday evening. Ahead of their trip to the desert, we're going to lay out things we hope to see from Jeff Peterson's four 2025 draft picks, his two 2024 draft picks, and an intriguing invitee that had a cup of tea in the NBA last season.

We'll kick if off with 2025 number four overall pick Kon Knueppel.

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Organize the offense

K.J. Simpson will be the Hornets' de facto point guard when the team suits up in Vegas, but I'd like to see some of the offense run through Knueppel. After playing a supplementary role for much of the season, the freshman swingman was handed the keys to Duke's offense for the final two games of its ACC tournament run when the Blue Devils defeated North Carolina and Louisville on their way to winning a conference championship.

In those games, Kon became the team's primary option in lieu of Cooper Flagg who was nursing an ankle injury. Knueppel operated Jon Scheyer's offense with precision, keeping the team organized without their superstar, do-it-all centerpiece.

Kon's ability to run offense as a primary creator will be one of the swing skills that defines his eventual NBA ceiling, and showing shades of it in Vegas will be the first step in translating his all around floor game to the big leagues.

Find a way to score

Knueppel's game isn't perfectly tailored for Summer League. The quasi-competitive games in Vegas can often devolve into glorified pick up runs that best suit microwave scorers who can get buckets without their team running a defined offensive set. That isn't exactly Kon.

The Charlotte Hornets' number four overall pick is a talented scorer, but he plays a more calculated style on offense that relies on craft, timing, and strength, not a joystick handle, nuclear athleticism, and contested shot making ability.

Finding ways to put the ball in the hoop in Vegas will be imperative for Knueppel. Although it's just Summer League, the level of competition will be a step up from what he faced in a weakened ACC as a freshman at Duke.

The NBA hopefuls lacing it up in the desert will be bigger, faster, and stronger than anyone Knueppel has faced so far in his career, and although he has had no problem being a go-to offensive option at every level of his basketball escapades, it would be encouraging to see Kon score in flurries next week as he's done for most of his life.

Develop chemistry with Kalkbrenner, Salaün

Watching Knueppel dice up opponents in screening actions at Duke was a delight. His mind meld with fellow lottery pick Khaman Maluach developed into one of the nation's deadliest two-man actions in their lone season as Blue Devils, and Knueppel will have two enormous rim-runners to chop it up with in Vegas.

Both Kalkbrenner and Salaün are play finishers, not shot creators, that rely on being set up by their teammates to score.

Rudimentary pick-and-slip, pick-and-pop, and pick-and-roll actions will be the meat and potatoes of most Summer League offenses as those plays are the universal language of basketball. It will bode well for the Hornets' future to see the beginnings of some chemistry in those actions between Knueppel and the two bigs he will operate the second unit with come October.

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