While Duke’s Cooper Flagg is expected to be the top pick in next year’s draft, another Duke freshman has scouts excited, according to Sam Vecenie of The Athletic. Kon Knueppel is being compared to Rockets lottery pick Reed Sheppard — a highly skilled player with elite shooting ability who was relatively underrated entering the year.
If Flagg isn’t the top pick, Rutgers’ Ace Bailey is the main candidate to supplant him. Listed at 6-10, Bailey has shown serious shot-creation ability. Another player who has impressed scouts is Egor Demin, a 6-8 guard who made a late commitment to BYU.
We have more from around the basketball world:
- A game-worn Michael Jordan jersey from the Bulls’ 1996-97 season has sold for $4.68MM via Sotheby’s, according to ESPN’s Dan Hajducky. The jersey was worn in at least 17 games during the season. It’s the fourth-most expensive NBA jersey sold by Sotheby’s. Jordan holds the all-time record with his $10.1MM “Last Dance” jersey.
- The salary cap is projected to go up by $14MM to $154.6MM next season but that won’t make much of a difference in terms of opening up cap space around the league, according to Spotrac contributor Keith Smith. The Nets and Wizards are the only teams projected to have meaningful cap space next summer.
- In an NBA G League swap, the Windy City Bulls received the returning player rights to Jordan Hall by sending Chase Audige‘s returning player rights and a 2025 G League second-round pick to the Long Island Nets (Twitter link). Hall, who played nine games with San Antonio during the 2022/23 season, signed with Italy’s GeVi Napoli of the Lega Basket Serie A this summer but was waived last month.