Lakers rookie Dalton Knecht, still sweaty from the career-high 27 points that helped bury the Pelicans on Saturday night, wanted a minute. His Tennessee Volunteers were driving against Georgia, and as he stared down at his phone, he asked for one more play before he began his postgame interview.
Tennessee committed a penalty and was forced to punt, an opportunity squandered.
Despite being an all-American at the university a year ago, Knecht couldn’t relate. Because when he’s gotten chances, like the one in front of him with the Lakers, he doesn’t move backward.
After Knecht put his phone down, he talked about the confidence the Lakers have in him, about how, after drafting him 17th, they’ve empowered him to let it fly, with coach JJ Redick drawing up specific plays for Knecht to shoot.
“It’s always good to have a coach like that, that’s super confident in you, always wanting you to shoot the ball,” Knecht said. “So when I go out there and I do shoot some crazy shots or something that I shouldn’t be shooting, it’s always good that JJ will have my back.”
Despite the greenest possible light, at least one of his 93 NBA field-goal attempts have had to cross Knecht’s “crazy or something like that” threshold, right?
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“No, not at all,” he said with a grin. “I think every time I shoot the ball, I think it’s a great shot.”
It’s exactly the mindset the Lakers had hoped for.
In Redick’s first official act as Lakers head coach, the team prepped for the NBA draft, a group of players including Tristan Da Silva and Yves Missi the likely targets for the Lakers, according to people with knowledge of the plans.
Yet Knecht, projected by some to be taken inside the top five, found himself in a draft-night freefall. Concerns about his age (he’s 23) and his ability to execute NBA defensive concepts were pushing him down the board and, suddenly, right into the Lakers’ laps.
One year after passing on the draft’s big slider, Cam Whitmore, and on an established veteran like Jaime Jaquez Jr., the Lakers didn’t make the same mistake twice — grabbing the scorer even if the Lakers hadn’t actually done any extensive homework on him as a prospect.
Whether it was at Northeastern Junior College, Northern Colorado or Tennessee, Knecht could score.
The fit was ideal for both. The Lakers, desperate to add shooting for seemingly the 100th consecutive offseason, got one of the best available in college basketball. And Knecht landed in a situation where there would be early opportunity to play for Redick, a player Knecht’s college coach, Rick Barnes, tried to model his game after.
“We didn’t think Dalton would be available at 17,” Redick said after the Lakers picked Knecht. “But he provides something we just don’t have. He’s a movement shooter, he can obviously play off the bounce. We viewed him very highly on our draft board, and he can score at all three levels. He’s got size, there was a lot of things to be excited about with Dalton. And I’m excited to coach him.”
The excitement didn’t fade as the two started working together, Redick quickly anointing Knecht as an elite shooter, even to NBA Hall of Famer Reggie Miller before Knecht scored 25 points in the fourth quarter and overtime in a preseason win against Phoenix.
He finished with 35 points. The last Lakers rookie with that many points in the preseason was Kobe Bryant.
“The thing about him is just the mentality,” Redick said. “It’s been very obvious in pickup before the season. In training camp, thus far in games, he’s got no fear. He’s not afraid of the moment. That was a show that he put on.”
And then, the show stalled.
The game in Phoenix gave Lakers fans a taste of what Knecht could do, a shooter and scorer who, at any time, could burn up the nets with a flurry of buckets. Preseason or not, people were excited.
Snoop Dogg nicknamed him “Westside Knecht” on ESPN the day after the preseason explosion against the Suns.
Yet rookies rarely avoid adversity, and Knecht was no exception. Despite beginning the season in Redick’s rotation, he was mostly on the fringes of their early wins, and by the time the Lakers hit the road for the first time, Knecht was almost in a full-fledged slump.
He scored 18 in a blowout loss to Cleveland, but the bulk of that came with the game already over. He made just four of18 shots from three-point range over the next five games.
“I am undeterred in my thinking that he is a tier one, top-one percent shooter,” Redick said after the Cleveland game. “I see it almost every day.”
Lakers fans didn’t have to wait long to see it for themselves.
Knecht’s shooting flipped a game later in the third quarter against the Grizzlies on Wednesday, when he made all five of his threes on his way to 19 points.
Then, with Rui Hachimura dealing with an ankle injury, Redick moved Knecht into the starting lineup and he scored 14 against the Spurs on Friday, setting the stage in New Orleans on Saturday when he finished with a career-high 27 points — three straight games in which Knecht showed that the Lakers might’ve gotten a draft night bargain.
“It’s no surprise to me,” LeBron James said Saturday.
Redick said as Knecht’s role has expanded, so has his rookie’s feel and timing.
“He’s getting comfortable,” Redick said. “But I would also say when you are an offensive player, when you’re a guy who is a high-level shooter, getting more extended runs and getting more minutes, you’re naturally just going to be more in the flow of the game. I think maybe I called a play or two, for him. But he just kind of got it through our offense and our passing and ball movement. So it’s just, I think the flow of the game for him is there when he gets extended runs.”
Opposing teams have targeted Knecht on the defensive end, and the results have been about as expected. Redick said at times, he’s held up. Sometimes, he hasn’t. Generally, though, Knecht has played with the kind of competitiveness and toughness that can overcome some of the deficiencies on the defensive end.
And on offense, the Lakers think they’ve got themselves something special.
“He’s already pro ready. It’s kinda how like [Damian Lillard] was. You go through college for so long, you mature, get older,” Anthony Davis said in New Orleans. “He doesn’t need the confidence. But when you have guys telling you to shoot the ball, that usually shows that we have the utmost confidence in you to go out there and make shots. He takes big-time shots, he makes big-time shots.
“And, like I said, it gives us a boost, especially when, two or three go in. We’re looking for him. We’re looking for him to shoot the basketball and it just opens up everything else for us.”
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Over the last three games, Knecht has emerged as an X factor for the Lakers, the type of rookie weapon teams don’t normally draft midway through the first round.
After Knecht’s preseason show in Phoenix, Redick was asked about making sure Knecht wasn’t going to get too far ahead of himself.
“Dalton’s easy,” Redick said. “He’s not going to get too high or too low. He’s, in the best possible way, has like a short-term memory with stuff. He’s just onto the next thing. It’s represented in his background and the way he’s come up and his path and journey to get to the stage. He’s just onto the next thing. He’s got a growth mindset.”
Thirteen games into his NBA career, Knecht has showed that — and there’s time to show a lot more.
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This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
