Kon Knueppel II was born August 3, 2005, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, into a house with six basketball hoops scattered around the property. His father, also named Kon, had scored 2,064 career points at Wisconsin Lutheran College — the school’s all-time leading scorer — and was a four-time All-Lake Michigan Conference selection. His mother, Chari Nordgaard Knueppel, had scored 1,964 career points at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay — the program’s all-time leading scorer. She was an All-Horizon League member every season, played in two NCAA Tournaments, played professionally in Greece, and was inducted into UW-Green Bay’s Hall of Fame in 2004. Her number 33 was retired in January 2025 during a ceremony she flew in for between her son’s Duke games.
The basketball bloodlines ran deeper than even Kon and Chari. Chari’s brother, Jeff Nordgaard, starred at UW-Green Bay before being drafted by the Milwaukee Bucks in the second round in 1996. He played 13 NBA games and spent thirteen years playing professionally overseas. Chari’s maternal grandfather, Arthur “Bud” Rose, played basketball at North Carolina State in 1931–32 and earned Honorable Mention All-American honors — the first All-American in NC State history. The Knueppel-Nordgaard family tree reads like a basketball encyclopedia stretching back nearly a century.
On Kon’s father’s side, there were the uncles: Klint, Klay, and Kole. They competed alongside Kon Sr. in the Gus Macker 3-on-3 Basketball Tournament as a team called the “Flying Knueppel Brothers” — having rejected the alternative name, “Free the Knueppel.” Uncle Kole became a college football referee in the Big Ten.
Kon is the oldest of five boys. His brothers, in order: Kager, Kinston, Kash, and Kidman. All five play basketball. When Kon committed to Duke in November 2023, he posted a photo on Instagram of himself and his four younger brothers standing inside the Duke locker room. Each boy was holding one of Duke’s five national championship trophies. Five brothers. Five trophies.
But here is the part nobody expects. When Kon was five and six, he was not into sports at all. His uncle Jeff Nordgaard, the former NBA player, remembers being surprised. Little Kon was bookish, using vocabulary beyond his age. The family was starting to think he might be a non-athlete — and then his parents bought a Nintendo Wii. It was the family’s first video game console. Kon played Wii Sports basketball obsessively. The virtual game awakened something. His parents enrolled him in a kindergarten league. He didn’t score a single point in his first ten games. He ducked when teammates passed him the ball. The all-time leading scorers at Wisconsin Lutheran College and UW-Green Bay had produced a child who couldn’t catch a bounce pass.
Kon Sr. ran a men’s league in Milwaukee — had been running it for twenty years. In eighth grade, Kon II started playing in it. Among the regulars: Ben Brust, a former Wisconsin Badger and the program’s all-time three-point leader. Brust kept beating Kon on backdoor cuts. By senior year, Kon was the one doing the cutting. The men’s league taught him what no AAU circuit could.
Chari ran a daycare from the family home since 2006. Kon Sr. worked as a school counselor in Milwaukee public schools. Six hoops on the property. Five boys. Two parents who were all-time leading scorers. Blue-collar Milwaukee.
At Wisconsin Lutheran High School: 10.8 PPG as a freshman, 19.7 as a junior, 26.4 as a senior. Perfect 30–0 record, WIAA Division 2 State Championship. Wisconsin Mr. Basketball. Gatorade Wisconsin POY. Also played baritone in the school band. He chose Duke because: “I want to play against the best players every day in practice, because that will make me better.” Enrolled June 2024. Roommate: Cooper Flagg.