Sam Vecenie raves about potential NBA impact of Kon Knueppel

One of the easiest picks for Sam Vecenie in a recent mock of the 2025 NBA Draft was Duke’s Kon Knueppel.

In that mock last week, Vecenie had the San Antonio Spurs taking Knueppel at No. 10, which would make him the third player for the Blue Devils in the top-ten behind Cooper Flagg (No. 1 to the Washington Wizards) and Khaman Maluach (No. 7 to the Brooklyn Nets). That’s with the fit being too obvious to him for Knueppel with the Spurs.

“This is just, like, super easy for me. This is Kon Knueppel the whole way. This is one of the easiest picks I will make the entire draft that we do this. If Kon Knueppel is there, they should absolutely take him,” Vecenie said. “It’s a great fit next to De’Aaron Fox. It’s a great fit next to a whole lot of guys on this team. I think this is a home run for them…Honestly, don’t have to talk a lot about that one.”

Knueppel is having one of the better freshmen seasons in college basketball this year in Durham. That’s clear with his stat line of 13.2 points on efficient shooting splits, including 2.2 three-pointers per game at 38.3%, along with 3.8 rebounds, 2.9 assists, and just under a steal a game. It’s some of the other things, though, like his numbers in the plus-minus, that show just what kind of effect he has on the court.

“He is a big, like, 6’5, 6’6- I know he’s listed at 6’7, I’ll be surprised by that – you know, real shooter. Like, a very, very serious shooter. He’s shooting 45-37/38-89 right now from field…Serious shooter but, on top of that, like, a very good defender. He’s a monster defensive basketball player. Not a monster defensive basketball player but he’s really good at Duke, at least,” Vecenie said. “Super competitive. Super high-level character. Can shoot off of movement, can shoot off of any sort of different action that you’re going to run.”

“If you look at any of the impact numbers, they are very, very high. He is super, super impactful, among freshmen particularly,” added Vecenie. “He is, let’s see here, seventh right now nationally in terms of BPM among freshmen by Cooper, VJ, Asa Newell, Bidunga, Tahaad Pettiford, Carter Bryant…And his, you know, minute load is just drastically higher than all of those guys except for Newell, Edgecombe, and Cooper Flagg.”

Knueppel has been highly effective in his role this season at Duke. That impact is then one that can translate right away as a lottery pick this summer in the NBA.