SAN FRANCISCO — Life in the NBA inherently involves almost constant travel, but Dalton Knecht’s ever-changing itinerary this February has been enough to make even a seasoned veteran’s head spin.
Much less a rookie.
Knecht, 23, was traded from the Lakers to the Hornets on Feb. 5, the night before the NBA trade deadline. He flew across the country to Charlotte the next morning, then to Detroit for his debut.
In an unexpected and unceremonious twist, the trade was rescinded after the Lakers, who had intended to pair Hornets center Mark Williams with newcomer Luka Doncic as a lob threat, reportedly balked at Williams’ medicals. He was returned to North Carolina. Knecht was shipped back to the team that traded him.
A week later, he had re-debuted for the Lakers in Utah, then made his way to San Francisco for the Rising Stars Game. No wonder the former Denver-area high school star was almost at a loss for words on Friday night at Chase Center. He was practically out of breath.
“To be honest, what I told those guys when I got back (to Los Angeles) is, ‘I just want to play basketball,’” Knecht told The Denver Post when asked if the looser environment of All-Star weekend helped take his mind off things. “That’s what I love to do. That’s the only thing I love to do, is just play basketball. So at the end of the day, wherever I was going, if it was All-Star break or it wasn’t, I was just going to be happy to play.”
It helped that he was suddenly slated to play alongside the best in the world on All-Star Sunday. Knecht is one of the first beneficiaries of a new NBA All-Star format, which allows the winning team of the Rising Stars event to compete in a mini-tournament against the actual All-Stars. Knecht’s squad earned the opportunity to match up against his Lakers teammate LeBron James.
Will there be trash talk?
“I usually don’t start it,” he said. “I usually don’t start talking. I usually try to finish it. So we’ll see.”
Knecht is averaging 9.4 points per game and shooting 36% from the 3-point line 49 games into a disorienting rookie season. He scored 10 in his anxiously anticipated return after the botched trade, knocking down three 3s.
He grew up in Thornton, attended Prairie View High School and played college hoops at two Colorado schools: first Northeastern Junior College in Sterling, then the University of Northern Colorado. His meteoric rise to the first round of the 2024 draft started in earnest at Tennessee with an NCAA Elite Eight run after his second transfer. But he still looks back on his humbler basketball beginnings north of Denver as an essential part of his path.
“I was on a mid-major team,” Knecht said. “Not too many people knew even what Northern Colorado was or where it was. So kind of putting them on the map was cool. … They were all watching today, so it was kind of cool to just have that flashback. I’m sure I’m gonna get on the phone with a couple of them.”
He has fond memories of watching All-Star weekend as a pre-teen: Kyrie Irving crossing up Brandon Knight in the 2013 Rising Stars Game stands out in particular.
Irving, like so many of the other greats Knecht admired during his youth in Colorado, will be across from him in the semifinal on Sunday night.
“I watched a lot of it growing up as a kid,” he said. “Now I’m part of it.”
Jokic on Doncic
The Knecht-for-Williams exchange gone wrong was meant to be the Lakers’ next domino after losing big man Anthony Davis in the shocking Doncic trade.
Instead, their search for a long-term center to team up with Doncic is stuck in limbo for the rest of this season. The consensus in league circles? That’s a minor inconvenience to deal with as penance for acquiring Doncic, who has made five All-NBA teams before turning 26.
Nikola Jokic, Doncic’s friend, weighed in more on the blockbuster deal at All-Star media day in Oakland, Calif., on Saturday.
“I kind of think both teams win. Maybe in my opinion, of course … I think Luka is a generational player, generational talent,” the Nuggets center said. “I’m not saying that AD is not. I’m just saying I think Luka is somebody that we didn’t see somebody like him before, who’s affecting the game on so many levels, so many possessions. He was building something there. I think he was hurt.
“I think as a trade, it’s not such a big thing, but if you trade someone like that, I think it kind of becomes a little bit of a big thing, and maybe players become a little bit serious about it.”
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