The first round of the 2024 NBA Draft had plenty of intrigue, as the lack of superstar talent led to trades and unpredictable selections. That’s how Tennessee star Dalton Knecht fell to Rob Pelinka and the Los Angeles Lakers at No. 17 despite being a projected lottery pick.
The Lakers were among the teams that had trade speculation surrounding their first-round draft pick. L.A. was rumored to be looking at all options, from trading up into the lottery to trading the pick altogether for a star talent or a veteran role player. Ultimately, they chose to stay at No. 17 and wound up getting rewarded for it with Knecht.
For Pelinka, the lack of a draft-night trade was a statement on the league-wide picture as opposed to the specific inability for the Lakers to land a trade. He focused largely on the new CBA as the reason for it, according to Dave McMenamin of ESPN:
“We explored every upgrade we could to make our team better,” Pelinka said. “I do think if you polled all 30 GMs across the league, just in general, trades have become more difficult because of the new CBA system. And so, there’s less access, I think, to making those big moves than maybe there was under the old system. But it didn’t keep us from trying to look at everything and ways to put ourselves in ways to be in position to be better. But even this pick alone, I feel like gives us a big boost and we’re excited about it.”
Trades have undoubtedly become more difficult because of the new CBA. Teams have begun treating the second apron as a hard cap of sorts, as the punishment for crossing that threshold are harsher than anything that existed in the previous CBA.
With teams avoiding that upper spending limit, trades are not nearly as straightforward as they had been in year’s past. Pelinka and the Lakers are among the teams who would like to avoid second apron issues altogether, meaning packaging the 17th pick and landing a star may have been out of the question.
Rob Pelinka: Dalton Knecht was top-10 on draft boards
Dalton Knecht was viewed by most draft prognosticators as a top-10 prospect with no one expecting him to fall out of the lottery. But the draft played out that way and Pelinka and the rest of the Lakers staff were ecstatic to see him available.
Rob Pelinka addressed the media following the Lakers pick, saying that Knecht was a unanimous top-10 player across their scouting department and the franchise never expected him to still be on the board.
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