Kon Knueppel is really good at basketball, at that alone might make him Brooklyn’s first pick on June 25, and erase a certain lazy comparison from our vocabularies.
Don’t say it, don’t comment it.
There are obvious reasons why a Brooklyn Nets fan may might be inclined to to say it. But don’t. Kon Knueppel is not Joe Harris.
While we’ve previously covered Jeremiah Fears and Noa Essengue, two prospects in play for Brooklyn at #8, they do not have obvious analogues in former Nets. Kon Knueppel, as a 6’6” white guy with an average wingspan who shoots the cover off the ball from three, has Joe Harris as his analogue.
In their recent history, Brooklyn hasn’t had players, certainly not teenagers, like Fears or Essengue. Flaws and all, either would be an exhilarating draft choice for a franchise that needs to acquire young talent, then dream.
Understandably, it’s hard to dream about a Joe Harris redux, as valuable a player as the original was for Brooklyn … finishing his career as the third best 3-point shooter ever. Well, good news: It’s a lazy comparison.
Here’s nearly 90 seconds of plays Kon Kneuppel made in his freshman year at Duke that Joe Harris did not make until the second half of his decade-long NBA career, if he made them at all…
Knueppel, an older one-and-done prospect who will turn 20 before training camp begins, is nice with it. The handle is good if not ground-breaking, he can make both stationary passes and nice reads off drives, and he is efficient from every spot on the floor.
At Duke, he shot 40.6% from deep on 10.6 3PA/100, 91.4% from the line, 41% on long twos, and 63% on close twos, per Bart Torvik. Even NBA front offices that are lower on Knueppel’s impact as a pro will readily admit the guy will probably be an additive offensive player for a long time.
Knueppel did not have to initiate much offense for Duke thanks to Tyrese Proctor and Cooper Flagg, who Can Do All Things, and he often saw wide-open catch-and-shoot threes thanks to Flagg and Khaman Maluach’s presence around the rim (the latter of whom we’ll cover imminently).
This was a departure from the norm for the Wisconsin native, but he scaled down his usage wonderfully. The big questions for Knueppel are whether he’ll be able to handle a real burden as an offensive creator at the NBA level, and just how small his margin of error is with subpar athleticism.
Let’s get one concern out of the way: In any role he plays, the shooting is real. His high school and AAU film is littered with pro-level shotmaking…
…not to mention the occasional flashes we still saw in college.
Gathering Intel‘s tremendous grassroots resource tracked Knueppel’s stats from EYBL competitions (the cream of the AAU crop) and combined with the tape above, we can see what he looked like in a scaled up role vs. excellent competition. Over multiple years of tournaments, he shot 50.3/41.7/83.1, taking 20 FGAs a game, with a low free-throw rate and a 1.5 AST:TO ratio.
In short: Kneuppel benefitted greatly from the tremendous talent he played with at Duke, transforming himself into a hyper-efficient role player who could turn closeouts into free-throws while posting a 2:1 AST:TO ratio. No fat on his game.
However — and laugh at pre-college information if you want — there is pre-existing evidence that Knueppel can scale his usage up against tough competition and get a ton of buckets. He may not be blowing by people and getting to the line all the time, and his playmaking may take a hit, but the shot-making and the pure craft is too advanced to ignore.
That stuff has to be special for Knueppel to be a home run pick at #8. This play against Arizona is very Kon: The crossover is nastier than you think, and if he’s gonna do one thing, he’s gonna get to a jump-stop and give you a pump-fake…
…but if the defender doesn’t bite, the advantage is for nothing. Knueppel is not exploding over the late help to lay the ball up off the glass there, he’d have to hit a little floater or step-back middy. As an on-ball creator in the NBA, Knueppel won’t get a ton of easy buckets for himself.
This is another instructive Knueppel possession, where he gets a decently nimble 7-footer on a switch…
A couple of drives mostly go nowhere, but Alabama sends slightly too much help, and the Duke guard makes a fantastic late read for an easy two. Knueppel is a strong passer who does not get lost in tunnel vision, but he really excels in regimented pick-and-roll reads. He’ll will need a reliable floater to pair with the lob pass he loves to throw in those actions, but he can see the low man, make a skip pass, all that good stuff.
This all bodes well for him as a surefire top-ten pick, and someone who may be gone before the Nets get a pick at #8 (barring a trade up).
What doesn’t bode well are the serious athletic limitations Knueppel has.
As a point of reference, Joe Harris clocked a lane agility time of 11.11 seconds at the 2014 NBA combine, 0.3 seconds slower than Marcus Smart and Aaron Gordon. Not incendiary change-of-direction skills, but nothing to be alarmed about.
Kon Knueppel, a decade later, clocked an 11.92. It’s just a combine drill, but a truly horrific one at that, tying the 7’1” Ryan Kalkbrenner and coming in slower than 7’2” Chinese behemoth Hansen Yang.
It’s great that he’s played well in a variety of roles against great competition, but the worry that a lack of athleticism finally catches up to him and limits his on-ball utility is real. It’s hard to watch the 2025 NBA Finals and think that Knueppel will have the athletic juice to play at the highest level of a league that is increasingly indexing ground coverage and short-space explosion. It doesn’t matter that Knueppel can jump high in an empty gym.
At Duke, his 1-on-1 defense was largely fine, though occasionally showed cracks…
some Kon 1v1 D pic.twitter.com/YHKyCUgYR0
— Lucas Kaplan (@LucasKaplan_) June 16, 2025
If he surrendered a driving angle to his opponent, it was over; there is little recovery speed to speak of. Closeouts were more of a problem than straight isolations, given the need to suddenly and sharply change direction.
To become a high-level NBA player, one who can thrive in the playoffs, playing with force is a must. Every screen is a mini-battlefield once spring hits, and being able to help-and-recover isn’t a bonus, but a necessity.
The same fears about Knueppel on defense apply to his offense. Will he be swallowed up by bigger athletes in the paint, totally mitigating his ability to read defenses and make tough shots? Will his step-backs and decelerations create space from NBA defenders? Or will he be banished to corner on his best days; that is, if he can survive on defense?
The Sell: Fairly obvious, in my opinion. Freshman who are that productive for a great college team, who possess that level of shooting and playmaking ability are rarely available at #8. Didn’t we kind of just do this with Jared McCain, another Duke guard with physical/athletic concerns who might move from #17 to #1 in a 2024 redraft? You bet on good basketball players to figure it out, and Kon Knueppel is a damn good basketball player. Think about what Cam Johnson became for Brooklyn, and then consider that Knueppel, although four inches shorter at 6’5”, is walking into the league with way more skill.
The Short: If the Brooklyn Nets believe the physical concerns with Knueppel are too overwhelming, then any All-Star potential is chopped off at the knees. Sure, he’ll become a fine rotation player, but this draft is too enticing to draft a nice little eighth man at #8. Knueppel will never run an offense consistently, and we know he won’t be a plus defender; it’s just too big a swing on his passing and shooting, which obviously looked real good on a loaded Blue Devil roster. I thought we were into versatility now?
I personally lean more toward the sell. It’s always nice to draft a good basketball player in the lottery, and Knueppel is a competitive freak who talks a lot of trash when he gets it going. Some of the AAU stories are legendary; the dude is not scared, and the Brooklyn Nets could use a few more young players like that, limitations be damned. Also, the intersection of shot-making and high feel is just rare at that age. At worst, you get a useful NBA player.
It’d be nerve-racking, though, for the first pick of a rebuild to be a guy with major physical questions as the NBA enters an insanely physical era — seriously, are you seeing these NBA Finals? Anyway, there are no safe bets at #8, but at least Knueppel has bona fide skills.
Join me on Playback at 4:00 p.m. on Wednesday afternoon, as I break down Knueppel and Khaman Maluach on stream, going through all their relevant clips and taking questions.