Topps came close to giving Kon Knueppel a card that split him between man and machine.
Instead, the company landed on “Kon-Air” for one of the new Alter Egos inserts in 2025-26 Topps Chrome Updates Basketball. But before that final design took shape, Topps had toyed with a version of the Hornets guard as part human, part fighter jet, according to a July 23 story on its Ripped site.
Michael Blaskewicz drew all 10 cards in the set, and Knueppel plus former Duke teammate Cooper Flagg are the only rookies on the checklist. The rest of the group is stacked with heavy hitters: LeBron James, Stephen Curry, Victor Wembanyama, Nikola Jokić, Kevin Durant, Shai Gilgeous-Alexander, Ja Morant, and James Harden. Each card comes in a base version and a Superfractor, with no numbered parallels in between.
Blaskewicz said Topps throws out most ideas along the way. He told Ripped he'd rather go through 99 bad ideas than settle on the first good one. In Knueppel’s case, that process produced a jet joke before the company settled on the final “Kon-Air” concept.
The card is built around a rookie season that gave Charlotte plenty to point at. The Hornets took Knueppel with the fourth overall pick in the 2025 NBA Draft, and he arrived after a Duke run that included 14.4 points, 4.0 rebounds, and 2.7 assists per game, plus ACC tournament MVP honors and a trip to the Final Four.
Once he got to Charlotte, he kept stacking milestones. Knueppel helped the Hornets win the first NBA Summer League championship in franchise history, then led the NBA as a rookie with 273 made 3-pointers on 642 attempts. LaMelo Ball was right behind him with 272.
He shot 42.5% from deep on 7.9 attempts per game and finished at 47.5% from the field. At the line, he made 195 of 226.
His 207th 3-pointer broke the NBA rookie record on Feb. 26 in Indianapolis, with Sion James - his Duke teammate from the previous season - delivering the pass. Knueppel finished that game with 28 points and went 8-of-12 from 3-point range.
Another landmark came April 2 against Phoenix, when he moved past Kemba Walker for Charlotte’s single-season record. Walker had hit 260 in 2018-19; Knueppel’s 261st put him ahead.
In Charlotte’s 127-107 win, he scored 20 points in 33 minutes and went 4-of-9 from behind the arc. Hornets coach Charles Lee then poured water over Knueppel’s head before the rookie’s postgame press conference.
Across 81 games, with 80 starts, Knueppel averaged 18.5 points, 5.3 rebounds, and 3.4 assists in 31.5 minutes. His true shooting percentage checked in at 63.3%.
Charlotte also tracked a long list of rookie marks during the season. By Dec. 31 against Golden State, Knueppel had 12 games with at least 20 points while shooting 50% from the field, 40% from 3, and 90% from the line - a total the Hornets said passed Curry for the most by a rookie.
On Feb. 7 against Atlanta, his fifth 3-pointer gave him 14 games with at least five makes from deep. Then on March 6 against Miami, he logged his 27th game with at least 20 points and a true shooting percentage of 65% or better, which Charlotte said moved him past Michael Jordan.
He also reached 250 made 3-pointers on March 26 against New York, and the Hornets said no player 22 or younger had ever gotten there in a season. Knueppel won the first four Rookie of the Month awards and became the first Charlotte player to take the honor four times.
Even with all that, Flagg edged him for Rookie of the Year by 26 voting points, the second-smallest margin since the current voting format began in 2002-03. Knueppel still made the All-Rookie First Team alongside Flagg, Dylan Harper, VJ Edgecombe, and Cedric Coward.
Blaskewicz said the Alter Egos artwork traces back to a 1990 cover of Oakland Athletics Magazine, where Erik Larsen drew Rickey Henderson as an intergalactic superhero. For Topps’ version, he said he leaned on his sons, ages 17 and 12, read fan message boards, talked with superfans, and watched player interviews. He used Wembanyama as the line for what works on the artwork, saying six arms fit the concept, but the wrong stripes on a jersey would not.
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