Hey Mr. Karter: John Caplipari's Next Hit Freshman
There have been enough star freshmen under John Calipari's teams to make a Greatest Hits compilation or three, but what makes Karter Knox look like the next one in line?
“Big as the what? Big as the Super Bowl”
-Drake and J. Cole, First-Person Shooter
In recent pop culture news outside of basketball, Kendrick Lamar was announced as the headliner of the Super Bowl LIX Halftime Show. This comes after a banner year where Lamar handily won a rap “beef” with fellow superstar Drake, which, while it may have been a debate to you, isn’t up for debate at all when you check the tape.
After his announcement, a faction rose across the viral battlefields of X to raise their banner in honor of Lil’ Wayne. Wayne, they argued, once crowned as the “Greatest Rapper Alive” in the mid-2000s, was unfairly passed over for a Superbowl spot in his hometown of New Orleans in favor of Lamar.
The argument wasn’t that Lamar wasn’t deserving, but more that Wayne had been “cheated” out of a chance to have a special moment in his hometown. Both superstars have more than enough hits to play a full set at the Superbowl that almost every viewer would know, with enough of their early hits ready to be sprinkled in to sate the diehards who have been following their careers from the jump.
What does this have to do with scouting the 2025 NBA Draft class? Well… stick with me! The idea of a basketball superstar big enough for a “Superbowl” of sorts is a fascinating one to consider. Which players would have a catalog of signature plays or sequences long enough to be recognizable to anyone who watched? The list wouldn’t be long, but it would likely lack the early career highlights that hinted at future stardom.
In retrospect, when scouting for the NBA draft, it’s easy to see those early hit plays that hinted at a future star. Anthony Edwards’s takeover against Michigan State and Anthony Davis’s block party in the NCAA Tournament are louder examples. Still, other plays like Tyrese Maxey’s ability to get downhill with ease or Franz Wagner’s versatile length on defense were also hits on their scouting tape that would spell out their future stardom.
So how does all of this tie back to Karter Knox, who’s entering his freshman campaign as one of the first new Razorbacks under John Calipari? As the brother of a former lottery pick, a Top 25 recruit himself, and a potential starter for a projected tournament team, the spotlight is already firmly planted on Knox’s freshman year.
So, what have I seen in Knox’s tape—to be more precise, what he did as a first option on his Overtime Elite team—that makes me bullish about the chance we’ve already seen some of the early hits in a future lottery pick’s career? Are there enough hits to outweigh the misses in his player profile to see a world where Knox could be a future star?
I’m Me: The Lowdown on Karter Knox
In many ways, Karter Knox’s emergence as a top freshman draft prospect is a familiar and new story. Like many recent draft prospects, Knox comes from a distinguished family of athletes. Still, it would be a misnomer to say that just basketball runs in the Knox family; his father, Kevin Sr., played football at Florida State and later in the NFL for the Arizona Cardinals.
With that said, Karter Knox and his brothers have each staked their claim as highly talented athletes and basketball players. During their breakout campaign, one of his older brothers, Kobe, was the fourth-leading scorer for USF last season. Karter’s more famous sibling, however, is his brother Kevin II, who starred as a freshman for John Calipari at Kentucky. The elder Knox’s star turn as a freshman led to his selection as a Top 10 pick in the 2018 NBA Draft to the New York Knicks.
Like most cases with basketball brothers, the natural inclination is to compare their games and determine who is better. Despite the temptation, my focus is solely on Karter Knox as a prospect, not on who he is compared to either of his brothers. It would be a disservice to him, too. In my opinion, Karter Knox is both a better and more interesting draft prospect to break down.
Knox has treaded a less traditional path in his career, but it’s worked out tremendously for him so far. After starring for the Tampa Catholic Crusaders for three years, Knox eschewed conventions by heading to Overtime Elite. At this point, while unconventional, it’s hard to consider OTE as anything other than a legitimate pathway for draft prospects, as they’ve had two players drafted in the Top 10 in 2023 (Amen and Ausar Thompson) and 2024 (Alex Sarr and Rob Dillingham).
Knox starred for OTE’s Real Wild Energy (RWE), serving as the primary option on a team featuring potential prospects like Somto Cyril and Daquan Davis. Knox was the unquestioned star of the show for RWE, as he led the team in scoring during the regular and postseason, topping 20 points per game in each, and led RWE to the OTE finals against the City Reapers.
Given the glut of talent on each OTE roster, it’s a strong testament to Knox’s game that he was not just able to lead the team in scoring as their primary weapon but also third on the team in assists per game, fourth in rebounds per game, second in steals per game, and was tied for fifth in blocks per game. That all-around dominance rightfully earned Knox a spot on the 2024 McDonald’s All-American team while leading to his much-anticipated arrival at Arkansas, where he’s expected to be one of John Calipari’s freshmen phenomenons.
Birdman Jr.: Karter Knox’s Finishing
To best understand what makes Knox stand out not just amongst the other talented Razorback freshmen but also from the various skilled veterans on the roster, we’ll start with his biggest strength: his athleticism. Knox is arguably one of the more chiseled freshmen entering college basketball, as he has both a sturdy frame and some of the best vertical athleticism from a wing prospect this year.
Watching the ease with which Karter Knox whirls around the basketball court is almost comical. For a 6’6” power wing who, per Arkansas’s official website, weighs in at 220 pounds, Knox glides with the rare grace and ferocity that few wings can boast. He’s a blur blasting toward the basket, with a first step that generates a lot of separation due to his stride length and burst.
He’s also a quick athlete laterally, using his long reach and strong upper body in concert with his fast feet to stay in front of perimeter defenders. His lower body strength comes into play when matched up against larger players, as despite his frequent size disadvantages, Knox is hard to push around down on the block for post shots and contested rebounds.
By this point, I’m burying the lede of what makes Knox such a special athlete. Given his prodigious leaping ability, he’s a vertical nightmare for anyone in his way. Each time that Karter Knox jumps, it’s hard to know when he will come down and whether it’ll be just the rim that faces his divine judgment.
What’s impressive about Knox’s dunking abilities is how versatile his dunk package was in all areas of offense. It wasn’t just breakaway slams, although there were a host of those; instead, I was more moved by the rolls to the rim, the putback slams, and the backdoor cuts where Knox effortlessly rose faster than any defender could hope to contest the shot.
The most significant indicator of Karter Knox’s high ceiling as a scorer came from his ability to generate half-court dunks. By my hand count from Synergy’s plays, Knox had 16 halfcourt dunks this year. Some of these slams came from pick-and-roll possessions, indicating how Knox utilized his screener to get downhill, but a significant percentage of these dunks came from isolations.
You can chalk some of these slams up to poor defense, but even in those cases, Knox’s combination of a quick handle, lightning first step, and gravity-shunning hops all come together to make him a dangerous driver. When you combine that with his sturdy frame, which can absorb contact, you get the rare type of wing finisher who averaged more than a dunk per game.
It’s not just dunks, however, that make Knox a lethal scorer at the rim. Per Synergy, across 148 lay-up attempts last year, Karter Knox shot a scalding 60.8% while taking four per game. That type of clip speaks to Knox's body control on his drives—he can either finish through a defender, finish over them with his length, or contort his body at absurd angles to get his scoops to fall.
RWE liked to copy a recent staple of the New Orleans Pelicans’s offense by getting Karter Knox on the move for his drives in a similar fashion to Zion Williamson. While Knox is nowhere close to Williamson as a colossal athletic marvel, he thrived in situations where he came off an off-ball screen first before careening downhill against an already-bent defense.
It’s hard to get much better than topping 60% at the rim as a wing, but two distinct areas could lead to even more offensive utility for Knox at the cup. Per Synergy, Knox spent 27% of his possession with RWE as a pick-and-roll ball handler, generating a “Good” points per possession rating. Knox’s body control and the pace of his dribbling helped him generate rim looks from these plays. Still, given that he only shot 43.9% on two-point attempts as the ball handler, these finishes could be further improved into another lethal weapon in his arsenal.
From a scouting perspective, Knox’s potential to be a grab-and-go wing in transition is just as interesting. Knox attacking the rim in a 2-on-1 or 3-on-1 situation would be an optimal scenario for Arkansas this year. Although it came in flashes, he showed enough moxie and verve with his handle going at full speed in the open court to imagine him drawing even more defensive attention in transition.
The fear of Knox dismantling the rim will lead defenses to overcommit to his drives. That’s why the positive signs of his bursty handle, ability to create good rim looks out of isos, and the still-untapped potential for Knox to make plays for himself and others out of the pick-and-roll and as a transition battering ram.
There are certainly a lot of wings who could enter the 2025 NBA draft class and stake their claim as great attackers of the basket, but you’d be hard-pressed to find many more wings that boast Karter Knox’s size, production, and upside as a finisher. That’ll weigh heavily among NBA teams, especially compared to other super athletic prospects who are more sizzle than substance.
Tha Carter 2s and 3s: Karter Knox’s Shooting
For as rosy a picture Knox’s finishing paints, his mid-range and long-distance shooting present a much more messy picture. That isn’t to say that Knox is either a complete minus as a shooter or is severely limited by his reluctance to shoot. Instead, because Knox has developed so far as a volume shooter and primary ball handler at OTE, so there’s no way around the issues plaguing his scoring package when he steps out from the basket.
I will start with the raw numbers because there’s a lot of data to look through to assess who Knox is as a shooter thoroughly. Per Synergy, last year for RWE, Knox took 275 three-pointers and 110 two-point jumpers. He canned 34.5% of his three-pointers while taking 7.4 a game, while clanking his two-pointers at a grisly 22.7% clip on 3.0 attempts per game.
Those numbers deserve some important caveats. The first is that while the sample is fairly large for a single season, judging a shooter from a single season is a fool’s errand. There’s too much variance in either direction, even with Knox’s glut of attempts, to determine whether he’s assuredly a good or bad shooter. On the other hand, given he had the green light to shoot so many times at OTE, there are some conclusions I can draw about the stage of his jumper at this point in his developmental trajectory.
Let’s start with some of the positives. As a volume shooter on the wing, Knox hit 35.3% of his catch-and-shoot three-pointers, including 39.4% of the attempts labeled as “unguarded” by Synergy. Knox’s shooting form is fairly standard, with good lift from his legs and a mostly upright motion. It’s a bit robotic at the top, with a lack of fluidity on his release, but it’s a form that he repeats even when unbalanced or off the catch.
With real wing size, the fact that Knox hit a chunk of his standstill or walk-up shots is a good indicator of his off-ball scoring at Arkansas and in the NBA. With so many other good players on this Razorbacks roster, Knox isn’t going to get to isolate and exterminate in the same way he did with RWE. Hitting 35.3% of his catch-and-shoot threes at the college level would go a long way to improving not only Arkansas’s offensive prospects but the outlook on his offensive versatility.
It’s when Knox shoots in motion that his shot profile falls apart. No matter how you cut it statistically, Knox is not a good shooter when moving. Per Synergy, Knox shot 28.6% on his threes as a pick-and-roll ball handler, 29.6% off of screens, and 25.0% on threes off of handoffs. These made up most of his threes off the dribble and cemented his issues shooting on the move.
The primary issue for Knox’s movement shooting from deep comes from his upper body. While he gets good snap on his wrist and solid elevation on step-backs and other moves, Knox has a bad habit he needs to iron out. On most of his misses from deep, Knox starts to lean back and slightly fade his upper body away from the basket while shooting. That led to many short-armed shots and clanks off of the rim.
A similar problem plagued Knox’s attempts from two as well. There’s a degree of fluidity necessary to be a good pull-up midrange shooter, which Knox doesn’t have yet. Just like on his threes, all too often, Knox’s upper body was fading away or to the side while trying to get his shot off. The best pull-up artists can overcome these adjustments, but right now, that’s not Knox, and his leaning will be a problem that haunts him as a shot creator until he can work it out.
It’s not a lost cause for Knox to be a good shooter, given his areas of success. Right now, he’s likely a passable shooter off the catch, bringing immediate value to John Calipari’s team. It’ll also give Knox some real off-ball utility in the eyes of NBA teams. If he ever wants to truly hit as a star, however, Knox needs to stay upright on his shot creation and balanced to nail his movement shots. That’s not an insurmountable obstacle and represents the clearest path to Knox being the type of young player who would earn touches in college and at the next level.
Right Above It: Karter Knox’s Passing and Ball-Handling
Since Karter Knox served as the top offensive option for RWE last season, his handling and passing capabilities were put on full display during the season. Defenses were planned for him, while top OTE perimeter defenders were given his assignment, which makes the tape on his ancillary offensive skills particularly useful.
It isn’t a requirement for a wing player to have an elite handle, but it is often the dividing line between good and great. Paul George was a nuclear vertical athlete who defended well and could score over defenders at the rim; he didn’t emerge into Indiana’s star until he had a good enough dribbling package to create for himself and others.
Jaylen Brown is often clowned for his lack of a left hand with his handle, but while overblown, an overreliance on finishes or drives to one side does put a cap on a player’s ceiling. Luckily for Knox, not only does he have a solid handle right now, but there are still a few places where he could grow.
As you saw earlier in Knox’s halfcourt drives for dunks, Knox has a lightning-quick side-to-side crossover that he uses often. Since he’s so fast with his first step, a simple go-to move is sufficient for Knox to get where he wants. He doesn’t just have that in his bag, as he often uses a set-up dribble on his pick-and-roll drives to create space before the screen.
That being said, Knox’s handle is a bit loose, especially in traffic. He drives into crowds hoping for contact, only to be met with stauncher resistance that jars the ball loose. That’s commonplace for younger wings, so it’s not a major cause for concern, but it is low-hanging fruit that Knox could cut out to improve his offensive efficiency.
The same can be said about Knox’s passing. There’s some stuff that he does well right now that could be leveraged at the level, while there’s enough on tape to likely give John Calipari some reasons to pump the brakes on Knox-led possessions. Like with his handle, there’s enough fat to trim that Knox could one day be a real plus passer if he develops correctly.
Last season for RWE, per Synergy, Knox had a perfect 1:1 assist-to-turnover ratio, with an even 2.4 assist per game to 2.4 turnovers. Daquan Davis and Darrion Sutton served more as distributors on the team, but Knox often got others involved due to how many times he ran the pick-and-roll.
When you watch the games and plays he made, it’s clear that Knox has a lot of pure passing skill. He can whip cross-court corner feeds to shooters while on the move, drop off dimes down low with either hand, and bend a defense to open up an opening for a teammate. The biggest green flag for Knox’s passing was how much zip he put on his passes, as he had more control than I expected.
Knox’s passing issues crop up whenever he faces pressure. Whether on fast breaks, when getting doubled on screening actions, or even in tough one-on-one situations, Knox is bothered easier than you’d want from a top option. Pressure leads to his handle loosening up and his passing becoming more awry, a legitimate hurdle he must overcome.
Even with his average assist-to-turnover ratio and turnover troubles, I’m still bullish on what Knox can become as a passer. He already has the plus skills in place, some of which are harder to teach than others, and instead must work on absorbing contact when creating for others if he can do that while at Arkansas, he’ll start to build some palpable draft buzz as an all-around offensive weapon.
Drop the World: Karter Knox’s Defense
As much as there is to gain from watching Karter Knox play offense for RWE, there’s less to glean from his defense. That’s not a complete knock on OTE as a whole, but given that it is a high school league that tends to be more offensively focused, the defensive tape from the league often leaves me wanting due to blowbys and missed rotations.
That said, Knox’s defense will be a key factor in whether he can hit in the way I think he can as a freshman. There are few other wing-sized players like him on Arkansas’s roster, but without too many other top-tier defenders, Knox will be hard-pressed to be more of the solution than a part of the team’s defensive problem.
Watching Knox was a mixed bag, given the various positive and negative plays he put on tape over his last season. On the bright side, there were multiple instances of Knox being longer and stronger than his opponents and using that to his advantage. His wingspan is a bit on the plus side, which helped him to disrupt passing lanes and create looks for himself in transition.
Per Synergy, Knox averaged 1.2 steals per game and 0.6 blocks per game last year for RWE. Neither number is impressive, but both symbolize the types of splash plays he makes on defense. I wouldn’t call either consistent, as most of his steals and blocks came from a gamble that worked out. Knox looked like an impactful defender when those gambles struck gold and swung a possession. There were, however, just as many that resulted in a bent defense situation that led to an easy hoop.
Some of what clouds the rest of Knox’s defense, mainly in his on-and-off ball coverage, was that RWE often played a weaker man defense with some zone elements. Somto Cyril was left to wander the paint and scare off intruders, while Knox and others had more leeway to dig into the center of the court without being hung out to dry as often.
There was no clear consensus when Knox was asked to play off-ball defense. For as many times as he closed out with proper form and used his length to his advantage, he’d also leap too early or late and give up a drive. That type of inconsistency isn’t going to fly at the college level, much less in the eyes of NBA teams, and alongside Knox’s screen navigation, it will need to improve to get more NBA looks.
Knox had separate issues with his on-ball defense. When he got into a stance and used his weight properly, it was hard to imagine moving Knox off his spot on a drive. Ball-handlers were harried and often threw up wild shots. Too often, however, Knox would give up that positioning and play lazier on defense, leading to tougher watches when he guarded the ball.
It’s not entirely his fault, as the team defense on RWE wasn’t the strongest, and Knox was expending much more energy on offense than defense. Like many past players who carried their teams offensively, Knox will have to go through the same rite of passage to improve his defense in a better team context, lest he not bring enough to the floor when he’s not the team’s star anymore.
Let The Beat Build: Knox’s Upside and Team Outlook
Like any John Calipari roster from the past decade-plus, Karter Knox is walking into one of the most heavily retooled rosters in college basketball. That’s saying something in the transfer portal era, but that’s also what happens when a coach like Calipari leaves one storied program in the pursuit of starting another.
There’s a single returning player in Trevon Brazile, with six transfers and six freshmen on the team. With so much upheaval, it’s hard to accurately predict how the next season will go for individual players on this Arkansas team. Based on who these players are, however, it’s possible to predict where Knox might succeed and struggle during his freshman campaign.
The backcourt for the Razorbacks is cluttered with Johnell Davis, DJ Wagner, Boogie Fland, and Billy Richmond competing for minutes. The same is true for the frontcourt, with Zvonimir Ivisic, Jonas Aidoo, and Trevon Brazile likely slotting into minutes at power forward and center. That leaves wing minutes as the most straightforward spot for Knox to earn a starting spot and make an impact on the team.
He’ll be competing with Adou Thiero, who transferred from Kentucky with Calipari this offseason, and there should be fierce competition between the two. Thiero’s game leveled up last year, as he was a part-time starter for the Wildcats due to his bouncy athleticism and unrestrainable motor. While Thiero’s 1.7% steal percentage and 5.3% block percentage were good harbingers of his defensive impact, being a career 32.3% three-point shooter on just 31 attempts in college does give Thiero a ceiling with the rest of the roster’s construction.
Zvonimir Ivisic can stretch the floor, but at 7’2”, he’ll do most damage inside the arc. The same is true for Aidoo and Brazile, given neither is an established shooter in any way, shape, or form yet. The spacing for the Razorbacks will be stressed even more by their backcourt, as Wagner was a rough shooter as a freshman, while Billy Richmond wasn’t known for his perimeter prowess in high school.
That leaves three potential positive shooters for Arkansas: Johnell Davis, Boogie Fland, and Karter Knox. Davis will be the team’s unquestioned star due to his shot-making, but for Knox and Fland, the road to early college success could ride almost completely on their shooting touch. That’s unfair to both prospects, as each brings numerous other elements to the floor, but the geometry for the Razorbacks may be too tight to work otherwise.
That gives Knox a clear path to starting and starring, even if it’s the most challenging path. There won’t be a ton of on-ball reps that Knox enjoyed as the lead ball-handler for RWE; instead, he’ll have to continue feasting in transition, on putbacks, and through his half-court rim attempts. He and Thiero will each be in charge of marking up against the best wings on their opponents, which will further put Knox’s defense under a microscope.
Ultimately, Knox’s minutes and role on the Razorbacks will be determined like his draft stock’s ceiling: by how well he shoots the ball. With some foundation to build upon, Knox must bank on his standstill shooting to hit in a major way. If not, he could find his draft stock and minutes on the team dwindling due to factors that aren’t entirely his own.
Fly Out: An Outro on Karter Knox
When evaluating who Karter Knox is as a prospect in a vacuum, there’s a lot to love. He’s a phenomenal (no F) vertical athlete who impacts offenses in the halfcourt with his hops, can handle the ball and create for others at a solid clip, and has much room to grow into his defense and shooting.
Like every prospect before and after him, Knox’s draft stock won’t exist in that same vacuum. Knox will have one of the more difficult team contexts for a mediocre shooter this season, given the respective shooting struggles of everyone else on the team. While it isn’t a death knell for his draft stock, it’s hard to ignore that Knox likely won’t have enough reps to show what he can do as a player.
That’s a shame, as Knox is one of the best wing athletes in this draft class. Players who can reach orbit like he can deserve to play in a free-flowing system with lots of shooters and not in one where a fair share of his drives will be into a cluttered paint. There’s a possibility that Knox is such a good athlete that he can break the geometry of this Arkansas team, but that would require his shooting and finishing to be top-notch all year long.
Having compiled a veritable gold mine of smash-hit plays as a finisher, the pressure will be on for Karter Knox to put up similar numbers as a shooter and defender. It would be grounds for a potential early coronation if he can make both into his strengths, but even shoring up one of these areas could help Knox become a lottery selection, which is a big deal. It might not be “as big as the Super Bowl” per se, but it’s certainly big enough to imagine what Karter Knox could look like with the ball back in his hands as a potential top scoring option in the NBA.