Kon Knueppel fell in love with basketball after getting a Nintendo Wii
“When Kon was 5 and 6 years old, he was not into sports at all,” said Jeff Nordgaard, Knueppel’s uncle on his mom’s side, who was a second-round NBA Draft pick of the Milwaukee Bucks in 1996 before playing mostly internationally at the pro level for 13 years. “We are a sports family. But he was really smart, using words in his vocabulary that were beyond what any of the little kids would say.
“We were starting to think he would be a non-athlete, which was totally fine, but still one of those things that surprised us.”
And then, one purchase made by the Knueppel family changed everything:
The Nintendo Wii.
His parents did not previously have a video game console in the house and made it a point to limit those types of things. But without that Wii, Knueppel might’ve never developed the love for the game of basketball he has now.
“I didn’t like basketball before the Wii. I just wasn’t interested in it growing up,” Knueppel said. “But we got that Wii and I started playing NBA Jam and 2K. I fell in love with players. From there, I was passionate to find out as much as I humanly could about NBA players.
“My obsession probably kind of got ridiculous, but that’s how I fell in love with the game. Obviously, when you couple that with great coaches and parents, they really encouraged it. But that Wii changed it all.”