The journey Dalton Knecht has gone on over the last 18 months has been wild.
After starting his career on fire and widely being regarded as one of the steals of the draft, the rescinded trade saga played
out, leaving him in an awkward spot the rest of the season. But the ongoing trend that began even before he was sent to Charlotte and back was his play tailing off.
His Summer League performance this past July turned out to be a pretty good indicator of how his sophomore season would play out, as Knecht has been a complete non-factor this year. In 41 games, he’s averaging 4.6 points on 44.4% shooting and just 31.3% shooting from range.
If anyone has ever needed a change of scenery, it’s Knecht. Unfortunately, there’s not a lot of demand for an offense-first guard who can’t score right now.
According to Dan Woike of The Athletic, the Lakers looked to move Knecht at the deadline, but no deal materialized.
The Lakers landed on trading one future free agent, Gabe Vincent, for another in Luke Kennard, surrendering the only second-round pick they had to offer. They were unable to offload any other players, including Dalton Knecht, who league sources say the Lakers shopped aggressively.
At this point, it’s a matter of when, not if, the Lakers move on from Knecht. The team already picked up his option for the 2026-27 season, so it feels very likely they trade him in the offseason just to get off his money and move on from the situation.
Considering how things started for Knecht in LA, it’s truly a surprise how far his stock has fallen. While he was never going to be quite as good a shooter as he was at his best, to go from that to being unplayable this quickly is something no one would have predicted.
Knecht has gotten plenty of opportunities this season, too. Injuries have given him plenty of playing time and chances to re-establish himself and he’s seized none of them. A new team, a new situation and a new environment would greatly benefit him because things can’t go much lower in Los Angeles.
It also highlights a broader issue for the Lakers as the back-to-back misses on first round picks in Jalen Hood-Schifino and Knecht really hurt the team both on the court and in potential trades. Hopefully, an overhauled front office and scouting department this summer can lead to changes and improvements in that regard.
But even then, few could have predicted Knecht would fall off the cliff this quickly and this drastically.
You can follow Jacob on Twitter at @JacobRude or on Bluesky at @jacobrude.bsky.social.
