The date is June 26, 2024 and with pick No. 17 of the 2024 NBA Draft, the Los Angeles Lakers have a difficult choice.
There was much talk over the summer of trading this pick for a potential third star to add to the glittering core of LeBron James and Anthony Davis, but it became clear that any major move would require the Lakers to lose young star Austin Reaves.
Lacking viable trade options, the Lakers must now nail this draft pick if they want to continue to contend for a championship. One option is to pick a reliable big man to help Davis with rim protection. Purdue center Zach Edey is a name that is floating around, but he is taken at pick nine by the Memphis Grizzlies.
However, one player surprisingly slips out of the lottery and even falls past pick 15.
Suddenly, it becomes very clear who the Lakers are going to pick. Heck, it’s a player the LeBron shouted out last year after a Laker game: Tennessee’s Dalton Knecht, dubbed Knecht 4 by Laker fans.
LeBron James said that he watched Tennessee play in the Elite Eight because of Dalton Knecht.
“We watched that Purdue-Tennessee game because of Zach Edey and Knecht.”
Video: @mcten pic.twitter.com/HTKnOJRqsX
— Tanner Johnson (@JohnsonTanner23) April 4, 2024
High School and College
Dalton Knecht was born in Fargo, North Dakota, but grew up in Thornton, Colorado— 10 miles north of Denver.
He grew up a fan of the local Denver Nuggets and modeled his moves after his basketball idol: Phoenix Suns star Kevin Durant.
If there’s one thing to understand about Knecht, it’s this— he has a well-documented history of fighting back in the face of adversity.
At Prairie View High School in Henderson, Colorado, Knecht showed potential as a freshman, consistently working out with his dad Corey Knecht, a former Division II basketball player. Knecht was unable to make the varsity team during his sophomore year because of academic ineligibility and had to sit out that season.
This ended up being the “best thing that happened to him” according to his father Corey, however, as he made it a point to balance athletics and academics, becoming eligible again by his junior season. Although he averaged 21.0 points, 6.4 rebounds and 2.0 assists per game during his senior year of high school, he did not receive any major Division I offers and began his college basketball career at Northeastern Junior College in Starling, Colorado.
A lot of people would have given up at this point. Not Dalton Knecht.
He had two very successful seasons on the junior-college circuit and finished his sophomore season with 23.9 points, 7.5 rebounds and 2.0 assists per game, while shooting 39.5% from beyond the arc. This got him noticed by the University of Northern Colorado where he would play two more seasons, averaging 20.2 points, 7.2 rebounds and 1.8 assists per game during his senior season. He would subsequently finish his communications major and pursue a masters at the University of Tennessee under Coach Rick Barnes, where he would begin the final, legendary chapter of his college career.
Volunteers Star
During the very first week of the 2024 season, Knecht won SEC Player of the Week for the first of four times after scoring 17 and 24 points in his first two games as a member of the Tennessee Volunteers.
But Knecht was far from done. He scored over 35 points six times throughout the season, capped off by a 40-point performance in a loss against a loaded University of Kentucky team.
Knecht exploded onto the scene, averaging 21.7 points, 4.9 rebounds and 1.8 assists per game, becoming touted by scouts for his scoring ability, ball-handling and size. He was subsequently named 2024 SEC Player of the Year, a 2024 First Team All-American, and won the 2024 Julius Erving Award, while additionally being projected as a top-10 pick in the 2024 NBA Draft.
And yet, even on draft night, Knecht slipped past the lottery. It is likely that teams passed on Knecht due to his older age and potential defensive concerns, per Jovan Buha of The Athletic.
The Lakers didn’t even schedule a workout with Knecht, as his agents expected him to be taken much earlier.
Knecht 4: The Future
It doesn’t matter how it happened, however, because Dalton Knecht is now a Los Angeles Laker and he has already shown incredible promise in this year’s Summer League.
While he struggled in his first two games at the NBA Summer League California Classic, he finished his last game against the Miami Heat with 20 points and nine rebounds in 31 minutes.
He continued this positive momentum into the NBA Las Vegas Summer League, where he has become the first option on the Summer League Lakers team (2-1), averaging 21.3 points, 5.3 rebounds and 2.3 assists per game, currently the second-highest point-per-game average of anyone in his draft class.
When interviewed by Jorge Sedano of ESPN, Knecht said, “I want to be the best player in the league,” and it is becoming clear that his belief in himself will propel him to succeed at any level. The future is bright for the Volunteers star, and, on a team that is striving to prove people wrong after being counted out season after season, he fits right in.
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