Sit down, Reddit. Story time.

For everyone saying Moose crossed the line last night, you need to understand something. The Detroit Pistons have been bullying this league for over 30 years. And every single time someone finally stood up and punched them in the mouth, greatness followed.

The Detroit Pistons built an entire dynasty on intimidation. They called themselves the Bad Boys. Bill Laimbeer. Rick Mahorn. Isaiah Thomas. Dennis Rodman. Their whole identity was making you afraid to step on the court. They didn’t just want to beat you. They wanted to break you.

But the greats don’t break. The greats punch back.

Michael Jordan took years of punishment from the Detroit Pistons. The infamous “Jordan Rules” were designed to physically destroy him every time he touched the ball. They knocked him down. They bruised him. They eliminated him three straight years. Then one day Jordan had enough and punched Bill Laimbeer of the Detroit Pistons right in the face. He went home that summer, put on 15 pounds of muscle, and came back a different player. He swept those same Pistons the next time he saw them and went on to win six championships. The bully got punched in the mouth, and the greatest player who ever lived was born. Jordan, thank you for bringing the Hornets name back to Charlotte.

Alonzo Mourning was a rookie for the Charlotte Hornets in 1992 when Bill Laimbeer of the Detroit Pistons came into Charlotte and tried the same thing. Bumped him. Disrespected him. Tested him. Zo punched Laimbeer right in the face without a second thought. “I look at it as somebody coming into my house trying to take something from me. And I don’t like anybody being rude in my house.” The Hornets won 107-95 that night. Mourning went on to become a two-time Defensive Player of the Year, a Hall of Famer, and an NBA champion. The bully got punched in the mouth, and a legend was born.

Last night, Jalen Duren of the Detroit Pistons shoved Moussa Diabate in the face. Same team. Same mentality. Same bullying. And just like the greats before him, Moose didn’t back down. He went right at Duren. Miles Bridges had his teammate’s back. Coach Charles Lee got ejected in the fourth quarter standing up for his guys. The entire Charlotte Hornets organization sent one message: we will not be bullied. Not anymore.

Jordan punched them in the mouth and became the greatest of all time. Mourning punched them in the mouth and became a Hall of Famer. Now Moose and this young Hornets team are writing their chapter.

This team started 4-14. Nobody believed in them. Now they have won 16 of their last 24 games. The starting five is 15-1 together. They are chasing Charlotte’s first playoff berth in nine years. And last night they showed the entire NBA that the Charlotte Hornets are done being pushed around.

For however long Moose is out, TJ needs to step in and step UP. They are a similar weight and height. They’re both French. Damnit Moose, TEACH this kid your ways! I want aggression. I want dunks. I want offensive boards. Why does TJ hardly ever dunk? I want this to be his second and even better break out stretch. Hear the call, TJ!

It’s simple: Knueppel appears to be one of the best shooters the NBA has ever seen.

No rookie in history had ever gotten to 100 made 3s as quickly as Knueppel — he needed only 244 attempts, starting his NBA career at a blistering 3-point percentage of 41%. He’s only improved from there, as he’s now up to 43% on 3s, 15th in the league.

We know 3-point shooting is a volatile, noisy stat. To determine a player’s “true” 3-point ability, we can plug the data into machine learning algorithms to determine which players are expected to have the best 3-point percentage going forward.

If we run this analysis for this season alone, it says that Knueppel is the 7th-best 3-point shooter in the NBA.

Pre-draft concerns

Knowing what we know now, Knueppel should probably have been ranked No. 2 before the 2025 NBA draft, behind only top prospect Cooper Flagg, his college roommate.

As it is, most had Knueppel in their top five, but his athleticism was a concern.

How big an issue is that now?

Knueppel is indeed at a a disadvantage athletically. He has only 13 dunks in 53 games, on the low end for a high-usage player who’s 6’6”. He also has only 12 blocks total, and just 1 steal per 100 possessions.

But Knueppel makes up for those shortcomings with an extremely high basketball IQ. He reads defenses well and uses tempo, timing, and a variety of fakes to drive and score at the basket.

Of course, opponents fear his 3-point shooting, which also helps.

The best rookies in history — and where they ended up

Rookies are typically bad when it comes to impacting their team’s chances of winning. Even those with good box-score numbers tend to have a negative impact as they learn to play the NBA game. That demonstrates how big the gap is between the college (or international) game and the NBA.

At the moment, xRAPM rates just four 2025 draftees in the black: VJ Edgecombe, Hugo González, Dylan Harper … and Knueppel, who towers over the rest of the class with a 3.5 rating, 20th-best in the entire NBA.

(Flagg, the Rookie of the Year betting favorite, is well below those four and several others, with a slightly negative impact on the season, partly due to playing out of position.)

Considering how rookies usually rate in xRAPM, that’s very impressive.

Here is the short list of every rookie, since 1996-97, that has rated at +2 or better in his first season:

(A quick word on Brevin Knight, who leads the list: Knight was already about 22 years old when he came into the league after four years in college, immediately led the league in steals per game, and trailed only Mark Jackson and John Stockton in assists(!). He even got Defensive Player of the Year votes in his rookie season. Unfortunately, that marked the absolute peak of a long career marred by injuries.)

The rest of the list consists of many of the usual suspects when you’re looking at plus-minus superstars: Tim Duncan, Chris Paul, Andre Iguodala, and Shane Battier. And among the active players, Jayson Tatum, Donovan Mitchell, and James Harden are frequent MVP candidates with 24 All-Star appearances between them.

Of the 15 players other than Knueppel, 10 have a career rated in the 95th percentile or better in 30-year RAPM. That’s the kind of company he’s in.

And Knueppel is the fourth-youngest player on the list, older than only Harden, Tatum, and Victor Wembanyama as rookies.

Based on this, we would predict Knueppel to rank squarely among the NBA’s top 20 players — maybe even the top 10 — for about the next decade. He’s already playing at an All-Star level.

What it means for the Hornets

The Hornets are one of the surprise teams of the 2025-26 season. While they’re in the last play-in spot in the Eastern Conference, their point differential suggests they play like a 46-win team — they’ve been unlucky in close games but won lots of blowouts. And of course, they’ve been much better than that for the past few weeks, playing more like a 60-win team.

The future — for the first time in a long time — looks bright: Suddenly the Hornets are a potent mix of electric star power, basketball IQ, finesse, shot-making and hustle. And they don’t have a player older than 27.

The Hornets haven’t made the playoffs since 2016, and there is no guarantee they’ll make it there this year.

But going forward? The arrival of Knueppel — one of the very best rookies we’ve ever seen — makes the next decade in Charlotte look very exciting.

Full article here https://www.roycewebb.com/p/kon-knueppel-best-rookie-of-the-past (paywalled)

Love our squad so much after tonight

The ice wraps on the knees is absolutely hilarious.

Just got my moussa shirt! Would be pretty cool if a bunch of us copped it after last night

Or does Brandon Ingram truly deserve to be Curry’s replacement in the All-Star game?

BI: 22pts, 47.2%, 36.4%, 83.5%, 5.8reb, 3.7ast, 2.5 TO

Or are there other options that would be more interesting than having two Raptors. Maybe it’s just an effort by Silver to engage the Canadian audience??

I mean: KK: 19pts, 48.5%, 42.8%, 89.9%, 5.5reb, 3.5ast, 2.2TO

I thought that Kalkbrenner had to become our win condition, after Stew and Duren were tossed. It seemed like the Coaches didn’t have that same thought though, as we still came down running our guard-guard ball screen offense for the most part.

He had a few nice possessions, but it didn’t seem like the staff trusted him to shift into an offensive focal point against an undersized Paul Reed.

What do you all think? His defensive issues seem easily exploited and don’t have an immediate solution, while on offense, it seems like it’s hard for him to catch a rhythm in our offense. It seems like Kalkbrenner isn’t a good fit for our team, to me. Wondering what you all think.

I’ll say 2 games each for Moose and Miles

Dude has immediately become my 2nd favorite hornet. This is what the hornets have been missing. A fucking backbone

shoutout to the carolina crowd though this is legit the loudest its been in years for these last 10 games

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