Ohm YoungmisukApr 17, 2026, 07:00 AM ETCloseOhm Youngmisuk has covered the Giants, Jets and the NFL since 2006. Prior to that, he covered the Nets, Knicks and the NBA for nearly a decade. He joined ESPNNewYork.com after working at the New York Daily News for almost 12 years and is a graduate of Michigan State University. Follow him on Twitter »Follow on XMultiple Authors
play0:17Kon Knueppel splashes a 3-pointer for the HornetsKon Knueppel splashes a 3-pointer for the Hornets.
Schefter drops some Hornets wisdom on Iman Shumpert (1:12)Adam Schefter and Iman Shumpert discuss the Hornets’ chances against the Pistons in the NBA playoffs. (1:12)
THE SUN WAS still hours away from rising over the Manhattan skyline, but a lively LaMelo Ball was up shortly after 4 a.m., delivering perhaps his most important assist for the Charlotte Hornets on this crisp morning in April 2025.
Ball and Hornets general manager Jeff Peterson were on their way to the renowned Hospital for Special Surgery for the point guard’s season-ending arthroscopic surgeries on his right wrist and ankle. As their town car cruised up the near-empty New York City streets, Peterson asked Ball for his input on some potential lottery draft targets. The point guard’s attention turned toward a highly touted Duke prospect.
Although Cooper Flagg was the consensus can’t-miss prospect, Ball was talking up Kon Knueppel to the Hornets GM. Ball had watched Duke play during the season and told Peterson how savvy he thought the forward was. He was struck by Knueppel’s basketball IQ and understanding of the game — impressive even for a five-star prospect. And of course, there was Knueppel’s elite shooting.
Ball’s astute scouting report was before Charlotte even knew where it would be drafting. The Hornets learned in the draft lottery a month later that they would have the fourth pick, which they eventually used on Knueppel.
“He’s spot on with those traits,” Peterson told ESPN of that break-of-dawn draft breakdown. “He was very detailed in his evaluation of why he liked him. That was even more impressive that he was able to kind of highlight him because there were some other guys that he didn’t highlight.
A year later, Ball is having the most successful season of his career. And Knueppel, whose historic first season could lead to Rookie of the Year honors, has been a revelation and the perfect player to unlock Ball’s and the Hornets’ potential.
Ball and Knueppel have formed a Hornets 3-point shooting duo of the future that has a new-age Splash Brothers feel to it. Charlotte has been perhaps the best story of the NBA season and authored the most surprising turnaround with a potent starting five that includes the emerging Brandon Miller, Miles Bridges and Moussa Diabate. The Hornets won 44 games after totaling just 19 wins a season ago. Only the Spurs have had a bigger turnaround this season.
“Nobody’s thinking that playing Charlotte is going to be an easy walkover game,” Knueppel told ESPN. “Which it has been the last couple years.”
The Hornets could’ve succumbed to an early rash of injuries and a 4-14 start, but instead they are a win away from snapping the NBA’s longest current playoff drought. After nine years of postseason-less basketball, Charlotte can end the futility by advancing out of the play-in, which began Tuesday night with a 127-126 win over the 10th-seeded Miami Heat. The Hornets face the Orlando Magic on Friday (7:30 p.m. ET, Prime Video) for a shot at the No. 8 seed.
Since Jan. 2, the Hornets have gone 33-15 with belief-building — and at times convincing — wins over the Oklahoma City Thunder, San Antonio Spurs, Boston Celtics, Los Angeles Lakers, New York Knicks and Denver Nuggets.
WHEN THE INDIANA PACERS were making their stunning run in the Finals against the Thunder, Bridges, Ball and Miller texted each other.
“‘We can do that too,'” Bridges told ESPN of what they said to one another. “We kind of modeled our game after that. We want to get out and run like this.”
Indiana lost Tyrese Haliburton to an Achilles tendon injury and lost the Finals in Game 7. But the Hornets saw the possibilities of running an up-tempo offense with an improvising point guard who can pass and shoot. Last season, Ball and Haliburton were first and second, according to GeniusIQ, in jump passes per game, which can create movement in a random offense and be difficult to defend.
Head coach Charles Lee — who also adds a Boston flavor to the Hornets’ offensive style from his time as a Celtics assistant under Joe Mazzulla — can often be seen signaling a playcall with a steering wheel gesture to his team. It’s fitting since the Hornets want to play full throttle with constant movement; they lead the NBA in double on-ball screens per game and points per game off those actions this season, according to ESPN Research.
“They gave the blueprint for a lot,” Knueppel said of the Pacers. “We might not have like the superstar, All-Star, All-NBA guy, but we got a lot of good players. When we play fast and we have a bunch of guys that can really contribute, it’s just a good style for us.”
In their second season together, Peterson and Lee set a different tone in camp with a move that was unlike the Hornets of the past. Charlotte waived veteran guard Spencer Dinwiddie in October just three months after signing him to a one-year, $3.6 million deal. The Hornets instead kept veteran Pat Connaughton as a locker room presence, making a financial choice that the franchise might not have done in the past.
“Of course Spencer’s talented, a great guy,” said Bridges, the longest-tenured Hornet who has been with the club since entering the league in 2018. “But they kind of went with Pat because Pat has a ring, has been around great playoff teams, has a great voice. We just need those type of guys in the locker room.
Even though the Hornets lost 14 of their first 18 games, including a seven-game slide, the locker room was able to stick together and not fall into old habits despite injuries to Ball and Miller.
“When I first got here, sometimes it was hard for guys to fight through those moments of adversity,” Lee told ESPN. “I felt sometimes guys were like, ‘Ah, we’re the Hornets. Here we go. We’re injured again. We’re going to lose the game.’ And there was almost like this defeated attitude when adversity hit.”
But Lee saw a different attitude this season. Once Ball and Miller got healthy and Lee turned to a starting five of Ball, Miller, Knueppel, Bridges and Diabate, the Hornets took off. They shockingly destroyed the Thunder in Oklahoma City, 124-97, on Jan. 5.
“After the game, we were like, ‘Why can’t we do this every game?'” Bridges said. “Ever since then, we had the confidence that we could beat anybody.”
“Similar to OKC, you have a bunch of guys all bought into a role,” the Philadelphia 76ers’ Paul George said. “They play an ego-less basketball … They’re all kind of shining together.”
“That’s the next step,” White said. “Everything else, you check the box. For us, winning those games in the mud when things aren’t going your way … These are how games are in the playoffs.”
The Hornets, though, showed why they can be so dangerous in a 114-103 win over the Knicks on March 26. During a 64-second blitz in the third quarter, Ball and Knueppel combined to hit three deep triples. Knueppel kept popping open off screens for 11 momentum-building points in the quarter.
When Miller threw down a thunderous fast-break dunk with 8:32 left in the fourth quarter to push the Hornets up by 21, the forward dapped up rapper DaBaby, a frequent supporter, on the baseline. The Spectrum Center exploded, with Hornets supporters for once drowning out the large contingent of Knicks fans who always show up.
That game was one of the Spectrum Center’s record 25 sellouts this season. Dell Curry — the all-time leader in games played for a franchise that once sold out 371 consecutive games from 1988 to 1997 — called the victory over the Knicks a top-three game for the organization in the past decade.
“Charlotte’s been starving,” Curry, the current team TV analyst, told ESPN. “It’s been hungry for a team to play like this.”
Fans have gravitated toward the Hornets for the high-octane offense but also their refusal to back down from a fight. When the Pistons snapped the Hornets’ nine-game winning streak in Charlotte on Feb. 9, the two teams got into the biggest brawl of the season, resulting in ejections and eventual suspensions for Diabate, Bridges and Detroit’s Jalen Duren and Isaiah Stewart. Lee was also ejected for arguing with an official.
“They were trying to b—h us the whole game, push us while we’re down, staring at us,” Bridges said. “I feel like we showed the league that we’re not backing down from anybody.
MONTHS BEFORE THE Hornets led the defending champs by as much as 30 in OKC, Ball knew the Hornets would be a serious problem.
When Knueppel joined the veterans for summer workouts and runs at Queens University in August, the Hornets began to see their potential. He and Ball hit it off immediately. They flashed “incredible synergy” and were able to repeatedly find each other open on the floor, according to Peterson.
“We knew [for a long time],” Ball told ESPN of when he realized the Hornets were going to be this good. “Like I ain’t going to lie, in the summer, we saw Kon, we saw everybody hooping. We’re like, ‘Oh, we got a squad for sure. We just got to put it together.'”
Ball is a larger-than-life “1-of-1” personality whose voice can often be heard echoing throughout the corridors of the Spectrum Center, where the Hornets also practice.
Kon Knueppel splashes a 3-pointer for the HornetsKon Knueppel splashes a 3-pointer for the Hornets.
“Kon’s more of like a dry humor, almost like ‘The Office,'” Lee said. “And Melo’s more like ‘Martin’ or ‘In Living Color.’ But they crack each other up.”
Winning, though, is no laughing matter for Knueppel. Even as a 20-year-old rookie, he has called out the team during film sessions on improving winning habits and even has chewed out vets like Bridges for “bulls——-” like during a game against Atlanta earlier in the season.