When the Los Angeles Lakers drafted Dalton Knecht, the initial thought was he could immediately contribute which led to inflated NBA Rookie of the Year odds.
One of the best pure shooters in his draft class, Knecht had an easy path toward minutes but so far he has struggled shooting the basketball.
Although the results haven’t been there for Knecht, who is shooting 38.6% from the field and 28.9% from 3-point range through his first 10 games, head coach JJ Redick is still happy with the shots he’s taking and believes they’ll go down at some point.
“I have,” Redick said. “To me, he’s gotten some really good looks both organically and when we’ve run sets for him. I am undeterred in my thinking that he is a tier one, top 1% shooter. I see it almost every day. Sometimes you go through stuff and because I played 15 years, it’s always hard for me early in the season if I initially didn’t get off to a good start shooting 3s. It became more than it was and I just started focusing on the long term and just believing that the law of averages would work out, there would be regression to the mean and I’d end up being a 40% 3-point shooter.
“But it’s hard mentally I think, and I’m not speaking for him, but I think for shooters, it’s hard when you get off to a slow start shooting the ball. It can kind of weigh on you. I’ve talked to him about it and he believes that shot is going in every single time. And so do I.”
D’Angelo Russell chimed in and said he believes that Knecht’s time will come and to be ready for it when it does arrive.
“Every young player in the league wants it right away,” Russell said. “The Basketball Gods have a funny way of disguising those blessings. So for him, just know that your time is coming and just be ready. I think he’ll be ready when his time comes.”
Rookies are typically going to be up and down in their first year in the league, so the best thing for Knecht is to continue letting it fly and remain confident. In the Lakers’ win over the Toronto Raptors on Sunday night, Knecht only shot 1-of-2 but it was a big one as his corner triple gave L.A. the lead late in the third quarter.
JJ Redick credits Lakers for responding to coaching staff
In the Lakers’ most recent win against the Toronto Raptors, the team came out flat in the first half and struggled to get much going on either end. However, they were able to turn things around in the second half and JJ Redick credited the players, including Dalton Knecht, for responding to the coaching staff.
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