Kon Knueppel leaves Duke fans with emotional goodbye after declaring for 2025 NBA Draft

Duke basketball freshman star guard Kon Knueppel announced earlier today that he would be declaring for the 2025 NBA Draft after one season in Durham. Knueppel averaged 14.4 points, four rebounds, 2.7 assists, and a steal a game on 47.9% shooting from the floor and 40.6% shooting from three-point range in 2024-25 for the Blue Devils.

Although this announcement was expected by the Duke program and all of its fans, it's still emotional to see it finally set in stone that Knueppel will no longer be wearing a Blue Devil jersey.

After the announcement was made, the star rookie took to X to send a farewell message to the Blue Devil faithful.

"Forever a Blue Devil. Taking the Brotherhood with me to the next chapter #NBADraft," the post read.

The pictures Knueppel included in the post feature some of the top moments of his freshman season and the 2024-25 season as a whole for the Blue Devils. The bottom right photo shows Knueppel being awarded ACC Tournament MVP honors after the Blue Devils beat Louisville in the conference tournament championship.

With fellow freshman sensation Cooper Flagg missing almost the entirety of the ACC Tournament with an injury, Knueppel rose to the occasion and led the team to the conference tournament win.

The Wisconsin native averaged 21 points and 5.6 rebounds a game on 48.6% shooting from the floor through the ACC Tournament.

The Duke program also made a post on X, giving a thank you to Knueppel and the massive impact he made on the Blue Devils' season.

"Loved having Kon in our program," Duke head coach Jon Scheyer said after Knueppel declared for the draft. "So proud of him and what he did this season. He's a guy that really is about competition. He never shied away from the competitive plays that have to be made in order to win at a high level. And as a freshman, Kon understood that, he played both sides of the ball. He had big scoring games and shooting games for us. He guarded. The separator is the fact, any time there was a loose ball, Kon Knueppel is putting his body on the line to come up with it."

Knueppel is the first to declare of Duke's three freshmen who are projected to be top ten selections in this summer's draft. Although it's practically a guarantee that both will declare, we still await announcements from Cooper Flagg and Khaman Maluach.

Knueppel is currently projected to be selected eighth overall by the San Antonio Spurs at ESPN's2025 NBA Mock Draft, done by Jonathan Givony and Jeremy Woo.