Knueppel scores 21 as Hornets win first NBA Summer League title by holding off the Kings

LAS VEGAS (AP) — Kon Knueppel, the fourth pick in this year's draft, scored 21 points and Charlotte held off a Sacramento rally to beat the Kings 83-78 on Sunday for the Hornets' first NBA Summer League title.

Ryan Kalkbrenner added 15 points and three other players each scored 11 for the Hornets, who ended their Summer League run with a 6-0 record.

Isaac Jones had 24 points and 11 rebounds for Sacramento (5-1), and Devin Carter scored 13. Nique Clifford, drafted 24th, finished with 10 points and eight rebounds. He entered the game averaging averaging 16.2 points and 6.2 rebounds.

The Kings lost for the first time in three trips to the final. They won titles in 2014 and 2021.

Knueppel continued his hot play after scoring five points in his opener. He averaged 18.3 points over his final four games and was named the championship game MVP. His 3-pointer with 31.1 seconds left gave the Hornets a four-point lead.

“Like I said before, if you're going to come here, you should win,” Knueppel said. “So that's what we did.”

The Hornets dominated early, leading by 36-18 in the second quarter. The Kings came back, and Jones twice cut the deficit to a point late — a follow with 1:17 left and a 3-pointer with 20.3 seconds remaining.

But the Hornets closed out the game at the free-throw line, three players making 5 of 6.

“It's a championship game,” Charlotte Summer League coach Chris Jent said. “That's what everybody wants to see anyway, so it works out well. In order to win a championship, you've got to play through adversity.”

Hornets center James Banks III was ejected with 3:47 left in the third quarter after picking up a flagrant-two foul for an elbow to Sacramento center Dylan Cardwell's face. Cardwell went down hard and remained on the floor during most of the video review.

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Sacramento Kings' Dylan Cardwell fouls Charlotte Hornets' James Banks III during the first half of an NBA Summer League championship basketball game Sunday, July 20, 2025, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Charlotte Hornets' Kon Knueppel drives against Sacramento Kings' Daeqwon Plowden during the first half of an NBA Summer League championship basketball game Sunday, July 20, 2025, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Sacramento Kings' Dylan Cardwell, left, and Charlotte Hornets' Ryan Kalkbrenner battle for a rebound during the first half of an NBA Summer League championship basketball game Sunday, July 20, 2025, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Sacramento Kings' Isaac Jones, right, reacts after a play against the Charlotte Hornets during the second half of an NBA Summer League championship basketball game Sunday, July 20, 2025, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Charlotte Hornets players celebrate after defeating the Sacramento Kings in an NBA Summer League championship basketball game Sunday, July 20, 2025, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Sacramento Kings' Dylan Cardwell fouls Charlotte Hornets' James Banks III during the first half of an NBA Summer League championship basketball game Sunday, July 20, 2025, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Charlotte Hornets' Kon Knueppel drives against Sacramento Kings' Daeqwon Plowden during the first half of an NBA Summer League championship basketball game Sunday, July 20, 2025, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)

Sacramento Kings' Dylan Cardwell, left, and Charlotte Hornets' Ryan Kalkbrenner battle for a rebound during the first half of an NBA Summer League championship basketball game Sunday, July 20, 2025, in Las Vegas. (AP Photo/John Locher)

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Wildlife crews are no longer actively searching for two juvenile gray wolves who were part of a pack that killed dozens of cows and calves last summer in Northern California’s Sierra Valley, an official said Tuesday.

The two wolves were members of the Beyem Seyo pack that in 2025 killed or injured at least 92 calves and cows in a seven-month period, according to a report released last week by two researchers with the University of California, Davis.

Wolves in the state are protected under California law and the federal Endangered Species Act. Under former President Joe Biden, officials said they planned a first-ever national recovery plan for wolves, but President Donald Trump’s administration ended that initiative in November.

In October, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife announced it had euthanized four gray wolves — three adults and a juvenile — from the Beyem Seyo pack after “an unprecedented level of livestock attacks across the Sierra Valley” by a single wolf pack since the canids returned to the state. It also said it planned to capture and relocate the remaining two wolves to wildlife facilities to prevent their behavior from spreading to other wolves in California.

Gray wolves primarily prey on wild animals like deer and elk, not livestock, but the pack became used to killing cows and calves, the department said.

“These wolves had become habituated to preying on cattle, a feeding pattern that persisted and was being taught to their offspring which would leave to form their own packs and could teach them the same cattle-preying behavior,” the department said at the time.

But following weeks of searching for the remaining two wolves, officials have “reduced efforts to capture” them, Katie Talbot, CDFW Deputy Director of Public Affairs, said in a statement.

“Despite best efforts from CDFW’s expert wolf biologists and law enforcement officers, we have not been able to find or get close enough to these young wolves to safely capture them,” Talbot said.

“We remain hopeful our continued remote monitoring will allow for sightings that will lead to safe capture of these juveniles," she added.

Talbot said that CDFW crews will be working this week on capturing wolves and collaring them throughout the state, including in the Sierra Valley.

Wildlife officials tried for months to prevent the pack from attacking farm animals by using drones, nonlethal bean bags, installing flags or rope to deter them and having officers in the field 24 hours a day, seven days a week, but their efforts failed.

“The efforts that the (CDFW) made were tremendous and heroic but it was too late.” said Amaroq Weiss, senior wolf advocate for the Center for Biological Diversity.

She said that cattle ranchers in the area should have been taking proactive prevention measures for years, including increased human presence around the cattle, keeping the livestock bunched up instead of letting them loose on large grazing pastures, and calving at the same time of year that deer and elk are birthing so wolves have a source of wild prey.

“Ranchers in California have been on notice that wolves were coming since late December 2011, when we got our first wolf. They have been on notice they would establish packs since 2015,” when the first pack was confirmed in Siskiyou County, Weiss said.

Gray wolves were eradicated in California early in the last century because of their perceived threat to livestock, with the last known native wolf killed in 1924 in Lassen County. Since their reintroduction in Idaho and at Yellowstone National Park in the mid-1990s, they’ve proliferated throughout the West. The recovering population has meant increasing conflict with ranchers.

“It was a horrible summer here for everybody and the emotional strain was probably worse than the financial strain for most people. They did the right thing. We couldn’t go on living the way we were living,” said Rick Roberti, a cattle rancher in Plumas County and president of the California Cattlemen’s Association, who lost several animals.

Economist Tina Saitone and researcher Tracy Schohr said in UC Davis’ quarterly agricultural economics update released Friday that the Beyem Seyo pack killed more livestock than the entire wolf population of Montana killed in 2024 and the killings of farm animals by the wolves in Wyoming in 2023.

In Montana, the state’s 1,100 wolves killed 54 domestic animals in 2024, and Wyoming’s 352 wolves killed 49 livestock in 2023, the scientists said.

In California, about 70 gray wolves were responsible for 175 livestock kills between January and October of last year, with the Beyem Seyo pack responsible for half of the killings, according to CDFW data.

Roberti said the attacks on livestock in Plumas and Sierra counties left many ranchers angry. He said he would like to see certain areas in the state declared “special zones” where people are allowed to hunt wolves that attack livestock.

“We’re pretty much in unison about thinking that it would help if we started taking out the ones that are just killing cattle and are too habituated to man or they’re not afraid of us,” he said.

The predators are a long way from recovery, Weiss said, adding that killing them is not a long-term solution.

“The scientific literature is pretty conclusory that killing wolves to resolve conflicts with livestock is not a solution. It can actually be counterproductive. It can result in there being more conflicts with livestock," she said.

FILE - This remote camera image provided by the U.S. Forest Service shows a female gray wolf and two of the three pups born in 2017 in the wilds of Lassen National Forest in northern California on June 29, 2017. (U.S. Forest Service via AP, File)