Kon Knueppel has been everything the Hornets have prayed for years. There is a new hope in the city and among fans. However, on Friday, the excitement took a pause when Knueppel exited the game with an ankle injury. After the game, the team’s head coach, Charles Lee, gave the latest update on his star rookie.

Knueppel had just started his fireworks in Orlando when he rolled his ankle after landing on Desmond Bane’s foot on his way down from rebounding. He was able to play for just fifteen minutes, but still ended up scoring 16 points on 5-7 from the field and 4-4 from beyond the arc. The team, though, had to rule him out for the remainder of the contest.

The injury seemed big, and it was feared that he would be out for more than a week. However, Lee’s latest update is turning out to be very positive. The Hornets coach said that the X-rays had come back negative and Knueppel will undergo further testing.

“(It) sounds like X-rays were negative,” Lee said via Rookie Wire. “We’ll get more information as we get back to Charlotte, but I love what he gave our group, and we needed all 16 of those points before he exited the game.”

Right now, Knueppel’s status for Charlotte’s next game is unclear. There’s a real chance he could miss the first game of his career when the Hornets take the floor Monday against the Milwaukee Bucks.

Charlotte came into Friday at 10–20 and 11th in the East. Knueppel has been one of the team’s most reliable players this season, so losing him for any stretch would be a tough blow for a group that’s already trying to climb the standings.

How does Kon Knueppel’s injury impact the Hornets?

The immediate impact of his absence is obvious. After all, the leading ROTY candidate is far more than a shooter. He’s putting up 19.4 points per game while shooting 47.4% from the field, along with 5.2 rebounds and 3.5 assists across nearly 34 minutes a night. At 6-foot-6, the guard has also emerged as one of the league’s most dangerous shooters from deep, averaging 3.6 made threes per game on an elite 41.9% efficiency.

Without him, the Hornets lose their best 3-point shooter, a physical young defender, and a reliable scorer.

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Knueppel has also quickly begun to mesh with Charlotte’s core of LaMelo Ball and Brandon Miller. Any stretch of missed games would interrupt that progress, which matters even more on the defensive side as the group has only so many chances to learn to function together.

Hopefully, it won’t turn out to be a long-term absence that could derail the Hornets’ championship-contender ambitions.

On an individual level, Knueppel is also firmly on pace to become Charlotte’s first winner of the award since LaMelo Ball. Cooper Flagg has narrowed the gap in the race, and time away from the floor would only make it harder for Knueppel to hold off the challenge.