One of the reasons that Los Angeles Lakers rookie Dalton Knecht fell to No. 17 in the 2024 NBA Draft was because of his defense. Despite having the size and range to be a good defender, he wasn’t seen as one in college. Many even viewed the Tennessee forward as similar to Lakers head coach JJ Redick, another sharpshooter who wasn’t statistically a great defender during his NBA career.
But through the early part of his rookie season, Knecht is showing that perhaps some of the criticism of his defense was overstated. He is not elite on that end of the floor by any means, but he has shown that he can be serviceable with some of the tools he already has.
And Redick has also seen some quick improvement from Knecht on the defensive end. He spoke about what that has looked like and why he’s confident in Knecht’s ability to grow even more on defense.
“I think he’s improving his physicality, both on and off the ball I’ve seen some improvement,” Redick said. “I don’t know how Rick (Barnes) teaches defense in terms of coverages and schemes, whatever coverages and schemes that he ran against me didn’t work… 41 (points). I’m only kidding, I love Rick. I’ve known Rick a long time.
“But I think that’s the biggest part of the learning curve for a rookie is being able to make multiple decisions in a short amount of time during a possession and then going back and doing it again on another possession. It’s hard. It’s hard to pick up the pattern recognition, it’s hard to do.
“But he’s improving there and I shared with you guys that at some point in August or September, I really challenged him to not be a traffic cone and he’s taken on that challenge. He’s trying, the effort is there. There’s things we can do in the weight room, there’s things we can do in terms of agility. In the long term, I expect him to be a good defender. He’s got the size, he’s got the strength. He definitely has the toughness, competitiveness and length to be that.”
If Knecht can become a legitimate NBA defender — having a positive impact on that end of the floor — it would make his selection at No. 17 even more of a steal. And that seems very possible for him given the energy and effort that Redick says he puts into his defense.
That is something to watch as the sharpshooter’s rookie season progresses.
Dalton Knecht still confident despite more attention
While Dalton Knecht seems to have established an offensive rhythm, that means more defensives are going to game plan against him to prevent clean looks from 3-point range. The most recent example being against the Orlando Magic on Saturday, who are known to be an excellent defensive team.
Despite Orlando’s length, Knecht was able to put up 17 points on 7-for-14 from the field and 3-for-7 from 3-point land. He acknowledged that teams are focusing more on him, but the Lakers’ execution offensively has helped him get good looks.
“For sure, but I feel like I still got a lot of good looks,” Knecht said. “I think to be honest, every time I shot the ball it was a good look. So my teammates will be looking for me all of the time and JJ will be calling plays and like I said earlier, it’s just executing.”
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