In an NBA where the three-point shot has become the primary offensive weapon for virtually every franchise, how many people at the start of the season could have realistically imagined that the league’s leading shooter from beyond the arc would be a rookie?
The No. 4 overall pick in the most recent NBA Draft, elite sharpshooter Could Knueppel out of Duke Blue Devilsshowed from the beginning of his first season that he possessed unique talent.
The Charlotte Hornets guard made an immediate impact in his earliest NBA appearances – posting 11 points and 11 rebounds in his debut against the Brooklyn Nets, then 20 points and 6 rebounds four days later versus the Washington Wizards.
But perhaps no one expected that by season’s end he would be firmly in the Rookie of the Year race, locked in a remarkable head-to-head battle with former Duke teammate Cooper Flaggwho entered the season as the far more heavily favored candidate for the award.
Could Knueppel has completely rewritten rookie history: in his first NBA season, the Charlotte Hornets guard became the first rookie ever to finish as the league’s leading three-point shooter. Not even elite marksmen of the past two decades like Stephen Curry, Ray Allenand Damian Lillard put up numbers like this that early in their careers.
What may be even more impressive is the efficiency and consistency with which the Milwaukee native fueled Charlotte’s outstanding 2026 campaign. Club shot 42.5% from three on 642 total attempts – an elite percentage while also ranking fifth in the entire NBA in total three-point attempts.
The raw numbers are almost hard to believe: only superstar names like Anthony Edwards, Luka DoncicStephen Curry, and LaMelo Ball attempted more threes than Knueppel. Yet despite his inexperience, the Hornets rookie finished the season with a better percentage than all of them. Simply lethal.
And that’s not all: with his 273 made threes, paired with LaMelo Ball’s 272Knueppel is now part of a duo that enters the history books. It had been years since the NBA saw teammates each hit at least 270 threes in the same regular season – essentially dating back to the era of the Splash Brothers, Stephen Curry and Klay Thompson. Not bad company to be in.
Comments are closed.