The Charlotte Hornets entered the 2025 NBA Draft with three picks, the 4th, 33rd, and 34th. Shortly after making the pick at four, the team [traded Mark Williams](https://atthehive.com/2025/06/25/hornets-trade-mark-williams-for-29th-pick-and-future-first/) to the Suns for two first round picks, including the 29th pick in this draft. With the fourth pick, the Hornets drafted Kon Knueppel out of Duke. With the newly acquired 29th, they drafted Liam McNeeley out of UConn.
There’s a lot of overlap in the skill sets of the two players, but that’s not a bad thing in this case. You can never have too many wings that can knock down shots and play good complementary basketball. Knueppel is better at those things at this point, hence the higher draft slot, but McNeeley is no slouch. Here’s what the Hornets got.
We did [a whole scouting report](https://atthehive.com/2025/06/18/charlotte-hornets-prospect-scouting-report-kon-knueppel/) on Knueppel before the draft, and he’s presumably the same player now as he was then. But we can do the condensed version one more time for the people.
Kon Knueppel is arguably the best shooter in this draft class along with Tre Johnson. He hit over 40% from deep and 90% from the line, finishing just a couple percentage points shy of an unprecedented 50/40/90 season as a freshman. That outside shooting ability is where a lot people stop giving Knueppel’s game credit, but that undersells his overall offensive skill set. Cooper Flagg left Duke’s first game of the ACC Tournament with an ankle injury, leaving Knueppel as the Blue Devils’ best player. He led the team to three straight wins and a conference championship, averaging 21.0 points, 5.7 rebounds, 4.7 assists, and 1.7 steals per game. He made 13-of-21 shots inside the arc and got to the line 24 times in those three games.
He plays easy offensive basketball, which doesn’t jump out at you, but it’s the most effective type of offensive basketball. He makes quick decisions on whether to shoot, pass, or drive, and he does a great job playing off two feet in the paint to create angles for finishes at the rim. He was one of the better at rim finishers among wings in this class despite not being the best athlete. He’s a plus passer that excels at finding bigs at the rim with lobs. He doesn’t have the quickest feet, but he tries hard and knows where to be on defense, which is like 75% of the battle.
The thing that stands out the most after studying Knueppel is that there isn’t anything he does poorly. He’s not a great athlete, which would make you assume he is or is going to be a bad defender and interior scorer, but to this point, neither of those things have been a problem. He’s been good in both areas. There’s no basketball weakness on the scouting report.
McNeeley requires a bit more projection. He was actually ranked a few spots ahead of Knueppel in the class of 2024 high school rankings, but he didn’t quite live up to the billing at UConn. His primary skill, his outside shooting, didn’t shine the way people expected it to and knocked him down the rankings. If you want a silver lining, McNeeley suffered a high ankle sprain after 14 games. In the 14 games pre-injury, he shot 43% from the field, 38% from three, and 85% from the line. The percentages nosedived after his return despite one explosive 38 point outburst against Creighton.
McNeeley has good size at 6’7″ and projects to slot in as a 3-point marksman off the bench, assuming he gets the stroke back with more time to get his rhythm back after the injury. He complements his shooting ability with a smart offensive game. He’s a more than willing passer and is at least functional attacking shifted defenses that are forced to close out on him. He’s not the best finisher around the basket, but that’s not what he’ll be expected to do at the next level. A lot of people compare him to Corey Kispert coming out of Gonzaga, which would be a great find at the back end of the first round.
He has to get stronger and he needs to prove he won’t be overwhelmed by the increased physicality of the NBA. He had an outsized role as a ball handler at UConn last season, which will probably serve to help him long term, but it’s not going to be what he’s asked to do in the NBA. The Hornets just need him to knock down shots, be smart with the basketball, and not get killed on defense.
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