Charlotte Hornets rookie Kon Knueppel opened up about playing for head coach Charles Lee.
During an interview with Noa Dalzell of CelticsBlog, Charlotte Hornets rookie Kon Knueppel opened up about playing for head coach Charles Lee.
"Charles has been great," Knueppel said. "He really preaches daily improvement. So even when you know the losses were stacking up early in the season, it was really just about continuing to get better each day. And I think going into each day with that mindset, living in the present, is really good, especially for our young team."
Lee is in his second season with the Hornets, who will be in the NBA play-in tournament this year. Charlotte has a talented core of Knueppel, Brandon Miller, LaMelo Ball, Miles Bridges and Moussa Diabate.
"Brandon missed a lot of games," Knueppel said. "He dislocated his shoulder, or separated his shoulder, in the second game of the season. So, he missed about 20 games early, and LaMelo missed 10 games early. So having those guys out of the lineup, obviously super important players for us.
"And then when they come back, they're on their minutes restrictions, and they're not playing back-to-backs. So, getting those guys back healthy, playing full-time, was really important. And then getting guys like Grant Williams and Josh Green back healthy as well, who are big-time role players for us, was huge."
The Hornets are in 10th place in the East. The 10th seed needs to win two play-in games to make the playoffs as the eighth seed.
Charlotte hasn't made the playoffs since 2016. It would be a great story to see the Hornets in the playoffs in Year 2 of the Lee era and Year 1 of the Knueppel era.
"We have a chance to get out of the play-in," Knueppel said. "And so that's really the goal at the end of the day – we have a couple of tie-breakers with teams in our division. So it'd be great to get into that."
Knueppel could win the Rookie of the Year Award. The Duke product is averaging 18.9 points per game while shooting 43.3% from beyond the arc. The swingman leads the NBA in 3s.
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