Los Angeles Lakers rookie Dalton Knecht had a charmed first half of his inaugural 2024-25 season.
And then he got traded, effectively taking the bloom fully off the rose.
L.A. general manager and president of basketball operations Rob Pelinka shipped Knecht off to the Charlotte Hornets, along with the Lakers’ 2031 first round draft pick, in order to acquire rim-rolling center Mark Williams so that newly-added five-time All-NBA First Team guard Luka Doncic could have a credible lob partner.
Williams failed his Lakers team physical, prompting Pelinka to rescind the deal and re-obtain Knecht and the pick.
But it quickly became clear that head coach JJ Redick may have been playing Knecht so many minutes in part to artificially inflate his trade value. His minutes took a dive, and with his confidence shaken, his output did too.
Still, Knecht’s fit with Doncic wasn’t terrible, although their time together was finite
Now, Greg Swarz of Bleacher Report proposes a new way to ship Knecht out of town, pitching the Toronto Raptors trade for the sharpshooting swingman who can’t defend anyody.
“The Toronto Raptors appear to have their new-look core mostly in place, especially after trading for and extending Brandon Ingram before the deadline,” Swarz writes.
Current starting center Jakob Poeltl will turn 30 before the start of the season, however, and may no longer fit this core’s timeline,” Swarz writes, noting that 24-year-old Atlanta Hawks center Onyeka Okongwu and 23-year-old Charlotte Hornets center Mark Williams could better align with the club’s core, “while Knecht would help improve an offense that ranked just 29th overall in made threes per game (11.8).”
Knecht, 24, averaged a decent stat line of 9.1 points on .461/.376/.762 shooting splits and 2.8 rebounds, but was squeezed out of Redick’s rotation entirely during the Lakers’ five-game first-round playoff defeat against the Minnesota Timberwolves
