{"id":669949,"date":"2026-05-14T23:27:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-14T23:27:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/669949\/"},"modified":"2026-05-14T23:27:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-14T23:27:08","slug":"kon-knueppel-commends-charles-lees-extension-optimistic-for-2026-27","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/669949\/","title":{"rendered":"Kon Knueppel commends Charles Lee&#8217;s extension, optimistic for 2026-27"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/basketball\/nba\/teams\/charlotte-hornets\/5312\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Charlotte Hornets;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Charlotte Hornets&quot;}\" class=\"link \">Charlotte Hornets<\/a> star forward Kon Knueppel recently made an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=aPmZuP0hl4g\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:appearance;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;appearance&quot;}\" class=\"link \">appearance<\/a> on the &#8220;Dale Jr. Download,&#8221; hosted by former two-time Daytona 500 winner Dale Earnhardt Jr.<\/p>\n<p>There, the former Duke product spoke about the recent extension signed by his head coach, Charles Lee.<\/p>\n<p>Advertisement<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re super pumped to have Charles Lee back and extended because we want to keep building,&#8221; <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/HornetsReddit\/status\/2054964440135500110\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:said;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;said&quot;}\" class=\"link \">said<\/a> Knueppel.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We want to keep building together, and I think it&#8217;ll be really good that way. You just keep adding guys through the draft; we got a couple of first-round picks this year and hopefully get two more studs and keep building this thing.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Lee has been a pivotal factor in Charlotte&#8217;s culture change, leading the Hornets to a 44-38 record last year, a 25-win improvement from the season prior when they finished with 19.<\/p>\n<p>As Knueppel mentioned, Charlotte has two first-round picks at their disposal in the upcoming 2026 NBA Draft, both of which fall in the top 20 (14 and 18).<\/p>\n<p>This article originally appeared on Rookie Wire: <a href=\"https:\/\/therookiewire.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/nba\/rookie\/2026\/05\/14\/kon-knueppel-reveals-his-optimism-for-next-season-behind-charles-lee\/90084708007\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\" data-ylk=\"slk:Kon Knueppel reveals his optimism for next season behind Charles Lee;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;context_link&quot;,&quot;yModuleName&quot;:&quot;content-canvas&quot;,&quot;yLinkText&quot;:&quot;Kon Knueppel reveals his optimism for next season behind Charles Lee&quot;}\" class=\"link \">Kon Knueppel reveals his optimism for next season behind Charles Lee<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Charlotte Hornets star forward Kon Knueppel recently made an appearance on the &#8220;Dale Jr. Download,&#8221; hosted by former&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":669950,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,126334,11002,34486,246888,44391,459,82],"class_list":["post-669949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-charles-lee","tag-charlotte-hornets","tag-dale-earnhardt","tag-daytona-500-winner","tag-kon-knueppel","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=669949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/669949\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/669950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=669949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=669949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=669949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}