{"id":322968,"date":"2025-12-02T15:02:11","date_gmt":"2025-12-02T15:02:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/322968\/"},"modified":"2025-12-02T15:02:11","modified_gmt":"2025-12-02T15:02:11","slug":"an-nba-rookie-is-having-a-historic-season-and-its-not-cooper-flagg","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/322968\/","title":{"rendered":"An NBA Rookie is Having a Historic Season, and It&#8217;s Not Cooper Flagg"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium css-1vqr2el\">The list of sweet-shooting, athletically limited guards who&#8217;ve failed in the NBA is long. For most of them, the slim margins they exploited in college through cleverness disappear when the competition gets bigger, faster and smarter. <\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium css-1vqr2el\">Shooting windows close more quickly, increased physicality disrupts rhythm, defensive shortcomings lead to relentless targeting on the other end.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium css-1vqr2el\">Knueppel\u2014laterally slow, lacking lift and more of a probing dribbler than a downhill attacker\u2014seemed vulnerable to all of these familiar concerns.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium css-1vqr2el\">The most surprising aspect of his rookie season is how little his perceived shortcomings have mattered.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium css-1vqr2el\">Take Knueppel&#8217;s shooting, for example. He&#8217;s not just a standstill weapon capitalizing on setups. Though most of his long-range attempts have been of the catch-and-shoot variety, he&#8217;s drilling <a class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-inherit MuiLink-root MuiLink-underlineAlways MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__ui__link__medium_strong css-lu48cp\" href=\"https:\/\/www.nba.com\/stats\/player\/1642851\/shots-dash\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\">55.6 percent<\/a> of his pull-up treys. When defenders try to run him off the line, he&#8217;s shown a knack for getting into the middle, trusting his strong base and elevating just enough to hit self-created jumpers.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium css-1vqr2el\">He may never be a dynamic finisher, but Knueppel excels at getting into the paint, taking his time and playing off two feet, which negates some of his athletic disadvantages. These skills serve him well whether he has the ball or not, and he&#8217;s been a stunningly dangerous weapon when rolling to the bucket or popping into space after screening.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium css-1vqr2el\"> Off the ball, his intelligence and feel for finding space have been even better than advertised.<\/p>\n<p class=\"MuiTypography-root MuiTypography-bp_small__body__article__medium css-1vqr2el\">Put it all together, and Knueppel has basically figured out how to accentuate his strengths while minimizing his weaknesses. That&#8217;s a pretty good way to decimate expectations and rise to the top of a rookie class.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The list of sweet-shooting, athletically limited guards who&#8217;ve failed in the NBA is long. For most of them,&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":322969,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":["post-322968","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322968","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=322968"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/322968\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/322969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=322968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=322968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=322968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}