Dalton Knecht Discussion: The Struggle Is Real

Props to him for staying ready, that's tough as a rookie especially.

It's a tough one to figure for JJ. DK is being hunted like he's a wounded animal found on safari. He's far behind all of JJ's other playoff rotation options on defense. But he has the highest ceiling offensively by a decent margin of those bench options. He can get microwave hot from deep and actually has functional offensive athleticism (Vando's goes MIA on that end). I don't think he can crack the regular rotation of these serious basketball games, but glad JJ is willing and confident throwing him out there to get a different look from time to time.

This summer maybe he and Goodwin can workout together. He can help Goodwin with his shot and Goodwin can help him with his defensive effort and give him tips on how to just bust your a** on that end.

 

It's really great that the coach and teammates have his back with the positive input

He seemed kind of butt hurt after the trade and in a funk

Hoping he can continue to build on his play and work on defense

 

The Lakers defense has been atrocious the past 10 games, though. They were the #1 defensive team for a while but now it's just plummeted. Vanderbilt hasn't played good defense in quite some time. He might be better than Knecht on defense but you can beat a team playing good offense and Vanderbilt hasn't provided either to justify the spot over Knecht, IMO.

 

Agreed those guys don’t play over DK when they are net negatives anyway

 

DK with his athleticism and strength with Jordan's defensive skills, techniques and (hopefully developed) instinct would be frightening. And another star level player next to Luka on a bargain salary.

 

I’m kind of perplexed as to why our defense has dropped off a cliff.
We were so locked in for that winning stretch.

 

Yeah, me as well. Could be the lower quality of teams the Lakers were playing mixed in with JJ trying to figure out the final rotations for the playoffs. The Lakers had the best 3P% for quite some time during that stretch so it could be that teams were just missing against them that they would normally make.

They gotta clean it up, though. You can't win games playing lazy bottom of the barrel defense and hope to become champions. At least gotta try and make the other team work for it.

 

The fact that our defense focuses more on stopping guys from getting in the paint than letting opponents Jack threes could also be a part of it since in many of the losses, our opponents got hot from behind the arc. This is what scares me a bit of the potential of a first round battle with the Dubbs.

 

https://www.theringer.com/2025/04/14/nba/the-curries-nba-awards-best-shooters

 

The kid can obviously shoot and I love his aggressiveness in not settling for the 3 by attacking the rim (with authority). I think his big issue, for me anyway, is he tends to get caught in no-man's land on defense where he is between two players essentially leaving both open. Sometimes I wonder how well he knows the defensive schemes. It is possible those lapses are why he doesn't get as much burn as he was early on. I do love how he attacks the boards too.

All in all I think this kid has played pretty damn good for us and finishing with Dame Award is a cool feather for the young fella

 

oh, i don't think this is in doubt. i think he also hasn't known some of the offensive schemes. at this level, it's very much a team game where you can be as strong as your weakest link, schematically.

if he grows mentally, he can be very good, like semi-star level--but he has a ways to go there.

 

There's a shortage of 3/D players in the league so it's wild that players who can shoot can't seem to play good D while players who can't shoot seem to play good D. Imagine if you could combine Vando and Knecht's skillset. That's the exact player the league needs more of. Combine these two skillsets together and this player would be playing 30+ minutes per game on any roster.

 

And making 30+ mil

 

it makes one wonder whether these things are actually possible--that is, is there some physical or mental characteristic that must be either/or to that degree?

how many great shooters in nba history have been great athletes by nba standards? durant? ray allen? was reggie miller a great athlete? curry? jordan (who honestly never became a great long-range shooter, and i'm not sure he could have).

how many eye-popping athletes have been great shooters? i can think of guys like jaylen brown, who's become a decent shooter, but you're not fearing him coming off a pindown and drilling threes as a steady offensive diet.

i mean, there's the argument that if you're a fantastic athlete, you don't have to work on your shot, so you don't. but i'm pretty sure kawhi leonard has worked on that shot for countless hours. same with jaylen brown. and it shows! but neither is really a movement shooter. they have to set it up with their dribble for rhythm or catch and shoot. they're not doing that crazy curry stuff from last night where they sprint all over the floor and then get a shot off falling out of bounds with zero space (knecht can do this, too, btw, as could reggie, ray allen, peja, etc.).

i've never seen someone who could do that also be a good individual defender. feel like it can't just be effort or practice.

 

Brook Lopez comes to mind. The talk about him in his Nets days was that he can't play defense and would just give up points. Then he became an elite defender and DPOY candidate for the Bucks.

PG13 came into the league not playing defense but knew he had to if he wanted playing time since he was playing the same position as Granger.

Doncic I can understand because he's not the most athletic but he does a great job at reading the game and getting steals or calling spots.

Knecht is athletic enough to play good defense so I don't know what it is. Klay Thompson wasn't a good athlete and played great defense and is one of the best shooters.

 

i think we're talking about different things in some ways.

i think you can be a good--even very good--defender without being a freak athlete. but i felt like the player you were asking for was an athletic defender who's also a movement shooter (hence the vando/knecht merge). my contention is there isn't a vando/knecht--and certainly not among the role player ranks.

even apex paul george may not have been quite the defender vando can be (albeit in limited minutes) nor the shooter knecht can be (again, in smaller doses).

iow, i just think it's an unrealistic ask for a guy to just develop the capacity. i will agree that if one part is going to be developed, it's shooting (e.g., lopez), but even then, it's usually standstill shooting. like, herb jones may one day become good enough from three so as not to be left open (and he'd suddenly make 3x his current salary), but he's not going to be popping off screens and drilling 27 footers with a hand in his face.

watching vando, i really question whether any amount of practice will yield even the standstill jumper. and i think he works at it and knows he could make even more money if he could do it.

 

yeah, he just doesn't have great hands, and that's a tough hurdle if you're trying to be able to shoot from that distance. we're just so used to seeing highly talented people in the nba that we assume it's easy, i think?

 

This is a great breakdown, really nice read. I wasn't sure how to explain the topic being discussed but this made a lot of sense to me