Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic <\/p>\n
While the Nets tipped off Saturday night in Houston, the basketball world was looking elsewhere \u2014 at Tobacco Road, for Duke vs. North Carolina.<\/p>\n
They were watching the sport\u2019s juiciest rivalry, a game that could produce five first-round picks \u2014 and the player most often mocked for the possibility that he will end up in Brooklyn.<\/p>\n
Though Duke superfrosh Cooper Flagg is the top projected pick \u2014 the prospect for which a third of the NBA is tanking \u2014 his classmate Kon Knueppel spent much of the past month being linked to the Nets by Tankathon.<\/p>\n
And if Brooklyn ends up outside the top 6, it\u2019s easy to see why. <\/p>\n
Knueppel is a crafty wing who came into Saturday\u2019s game averaging 13.1 points and shooting 37.3 percent from deep.<\/p>\n
He scored a game-high 22 points and had five rebounds and five assists in Duke\u2019s 87-70 blowout win over rival North Carolina. His teammate Flagg chipped in with 21 in the win.<\/p>\n
\u201cYeah, for me, it\u2019s his poise,\u201d Nets wing and ex-Duke star Dariq Whitehead told The Post. \u201cIt\u2019s the way he\u2019s been playing that pick-and-roll. He\u2019s been mixing it up with a lot of guys, just showing how poised he is.<\/p>\n
\u201c[His] shot wasn\u2019t going early for him. He continued to stick with it. Started to make better reads offensively and defensively as well. He fought through the slump. It\u2019s a freshman slump. Everybody has it. He fought through it, and that was my biggest kudos to him, just being able to fight through that freshman slump and get on the right page.\u201d<\/p>\n
In that aforementioned malaise \u2014 bottoming out with a six-point outing vs. George Mason, 0-for-4 from deep \u2014 Knueppel shot just 40.4 percent and 23.3 from deep. <\/p>\n
But since then, he\u2019d averaged 14.4 points on 48.1 percent and 44.4 from 3.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was definitely the worst slump of my life. It was a rough couple of games,\u201d Knueppel said. \u201c[I started] trying to be more intentional with holding my follow-through. \u2026 It\u2019s more about the mind than anything else.\u201d<\/p>\n
Knueppel actually leads Duke in on-off margin \u2014 ahead of even Flagg \u2014 at 10.3 points, per statistician Evan Miyakawa.<\/p>\n
Now the wing is sixth on Tankathon\u2019s Big Board, and could go in the bottom half of the Top 10.<\/p>\n
\u201cI really like Knueppel from Duke,\u201d ex-76ers scout Mike VandeGarde told The Post. \u201cBut he\u2019s more one-dimensional, and one-dimensional guys usually don\u2019t go top 6, 7 or 8. They start coming into play about 8-to-15. \u2026 The only guy that got drafted super high was Reed Sheppard. [And] Knueppel to me is not Reed Sheppard.<\/p>\n
\u201cIs he a really good player and are you excited to have him on your squad? Yeah. But is he Luke Kennard, is he Kyle Korver, is he Gradey Dick? Those guys are really solid [but] you usually don\u2019t draft those guys [top 5] because if you\u2019re in the top 4, 5, 6, you\u2019re usually really bad and need to find that stud. And Knueppel to me isn\u2019t the best player on a playoff team. \u2026 [But] I really like his game. And if I\u2019m at eight, I\u2019m looking at him.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Nets entered the weekend 15-33, tied with Toronto for fifth in the lottery odds. They were four games ahead of No. 7 Portland.<\/p>\n
Often compared to fellow ex-Blue Devil Kennard, or Kevin Huerter, the 6-foot-7, 217-pound Knueppel has a frame and physicality more akin to Joe Harris.<\/p>\n
\u201cIts awesome,\u201d Knueppel said of the physicality. \u201cIt juices me up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Knueppel\u2019s limited playmaking and foot speed will likely keep him outside the top 6. <\/p>\n
But if the Nets end up seventh or below, he could be a great complementary piece thanks to his shooting and off-ball movement learned from his father Kon Sr., who was Wisconsin Lutheran College\u2019s all-time leading scorer.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe played in a men\u2019s league that he runs. I\u2019ve played in it for a long time,\u201d Knueppel said. \u201cSo those guys aren\u2019t fast or athletic, so learning how to move off the ball with those guys and play with them. Just watching him doing it my whole life.<\/p>\n
\u201c[I watched] guys that played here like Luke Kennard, Grayson Allen, really good players who know how to play off their shot fake, and really move off the ball well. [Steph] Curry, Klay Thompson, those guys who can play without the ball in their hands.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Summarize this content to 2000 words in 6 paragraphs in Arabic While the Nets tipped off Saturday night in Houston, the basketball world was looking elsewhere \u2014 at Tobacco Road, for Duke vs. North Carolina. They were watching the sport\u2019s juiciest rivalry, a game that could produce five first-round picks \u2014 and the player most<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":189826,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[58],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-189825","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189825","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=189825"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189825\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":189827,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/189825\/revisions\/189827"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/189826"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=189825"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=189825"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/globetimeline.com\/ar\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=189825"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}