In the early portion of the NBA season, you would have been forgiven if you'd felt a bit disappointed in Cooper Flagg. Blame his age, the outrageous expectations or even the fact that he began the year at point guard for some reason, but Flagg's 37% true shooting and overall lack of efficiency opened the door to the rest of this rookie class in a Rookie of the Year race that was supposed to be his from start to finish.
And while Flagg has probably taken back the lead on the ROY ladder, the leaders of that early sprint are still nipping at his heels — begging the question of just who has been better overall between the Charlotte Hornets' Kon Knueppel or VJ Edgecombe out of Philadelphia. Let's dig in.
Kon Knueppel, Charlotte Hornets
As a pure shooter and offensive weapon, Knueppel absolutely laps the rest of the class — and quite frankly, most of the NBA as well. He is the fastest player in league history to ever make 100 threes, averages just under 20 points per game on above-average efficiency (15.7 PER, 22.1% usage rate) and boasts a 63.9 true shooting percentage that outstrips a list of names highlighted by Luka Doncic, Steph Curry, Donovan Mitchell, Anthony Edwards and Devin Booker. If advanced stats don't move you, Knueppel is almost putting up a 50/40/90 season as a rookie. Forget his class — there are few pure shooters that can keep up with him in the league, period.
Knueppel's shortcomings are minor enough that they should be painted more as strengths of Edgecombe, to be addressed below. However, one thing to mention about Knueppel is that while the eye test paints him as a comfortable, veteran-like presence beyond his years, the Duke product isn't quite as well-rounded as Edgecombe as a defender or playmaker — though he's close on the playmaking side of things.
Spoiler alert: This matchup will come down to an avalanche of arguments from VJ Edgecombe's end, and whether or not they amount to overtaking Knueppel's scoring and efficiency right now. Death by a thousand cuts, if you will.
VJ Edgecombe, Philadelphia 76ers
The elephant in the room: Knueppel's efficiency alone has carried him to a higher PER, win share total, win share per 48 minutes and box plus/minus than Edgecombe. If you're Jonah Hill from Moneyball, chances are that you're taking Knueppel's lines over Edgecombe's nine times out of ten.
However, there are a couple of points to consider on VJ's end. The first: Before Joel Embiid and Paul George were ramped up, Edgecombe was on a tear. His early-season averages (40+ minutes per game, 24.5 PPG, 6.5 RPG, and 5.5 APG) were absolutely absurd for a rookie, and his tape was basically one long highlight reel. Even now, as his numbers have dipped across the board, Edgecombe still continues to slightly outpace Knueppel in most every area not influenced by scoring — and yes, that includes the advanced stats of assist and turnover percentage, defensive win shares and BPM and stocks (steals plus blocks).
There is also context to Edgecombe's dip in production. Like it or not, George and Embiid, beat up supercars as they are, are still a part of Philadelphia's offense, which has the 19th-ranked offensive rating in the league, contrasted to Charlotte's (14th in the league). When he and Tyrese Maxey were bouncing off of one another, Edgecombe looked like an absolute monster, and it's reasonable to assume that he could easily be again once the 76ers can finally move off of their ancient incumbent stars.
However, that doesn't necessarily mean as much, as Embiid and George are here. And despite his early-season pop, Edgecombe has cooled off enough to muddy up the rest of his season just a bit.