That’s when you started to hear rumors and comments about Milwaukee native Kon Knueppel. People have said that he’s been the best player in practice – one visitor said it wasn’t close – and when asked on the Brotherhood Podcast, virtually all of his new teammates said that Knueppel was the most impressive player.
Over at The Fayetteville Observer, Rodd Baxley asked the smart question: how did he learn how to play like that?
And for Knueppel, it turned out to be a great learning experience because those guys can’t run and jump like they once could and had to learn to be economical and smart in their movements. And for ninth grader Kon, it was a revelation that those guy consistently kicked his butt: “I think learning that physicality, how to get open, how to score over guys that are older, but also guys that can’t move as well anymore, I’m just learning by watching how they score and how they get off their shot. It’s just really important to be balanced; that’s how you make plays…I was in ninth grade and he’s just beating me on all these backdoor cuts.”
It’s kind of wild that a young kid was observant enough – not to mention humble enough – to learn from what can fairly be called basketball geezers.
Okay, maybe lifers is a better word.
However you describe them though, Knueppel picked up lessons there that have proven to be invaluable and may help propel him to an NBA career.
