EL SEGUNDO — Before Dalton Knecht even played his first NBA game, Lakers coach JJ Redick had a message for him – one that Knecht’s carried with him since he first shot a basketball and throughout his recent hot streak, including his 37-point performance in Tuesday’s home win over the Utah Jazz.
During his first official practice of the Lakers’ training camp Oct. 1, Knecht came off a dribble handoff with Jaxson Hayes above the 3-point line, taking one dribble parallel to the baseline before passing to Gabe Vincent on the opposite wing.
The problem, in Redick’s eyes: Knecht didn’t look to score, with the 6-foot-6 rookie not fully turning his body and barely putting his eyes on the basket before passing.
“Oh, DK – every action you’re in, you’re coming off to score,” Redick said to Knecht on the Lakers’ practice court in a moment that was broadcast on Spectrum SportsNets’ Nov. 1 episode of “Backstage: Lakers. “Could’ve had a shot. Come on, man.”
Redick had a similar message for Knecht four weeks later.
Early in the second quarter in their Oct. 28 road loss to the Phoenix Suns, the Lakers’ coach called a sidelined out-of-bounds play for D’Angelo Russell to inbound the ball to Knecht as he was coming off a pindown screen from Hayes. Knecht flipped the ball back to Russell, who passed to Hayes a few steps behind the 3-point arc, before coming off a Russell off-ball screen and receiving a handoff from Hayes.
Knecht’s defender, Suns guard Bradley Beal, went underneath the screen Hayes set for Knecht, opening up a sliver of space for Knecht to shoot a couple of steps behind the 3-point line.
But he didn’t.
Knecht drove left, with 6-foot-4 Beal disrupting his path, before passing to Hayes at the elbow with seven seconds left on the shot clock. The possession stalled out and the Suns forced a shot-clock violation.
After the play, the Lakers’ broadcast caught Redick, in part, mouthing toward the court in a moment: “Shoot the [expletive] ball.”
The message, which went viral on social media, was intended for Knecht.
“JJ from the jump has always been super confident in me, [wanting] me to shoot the ball,” Knecht told the Southern California News Group after the team’s practice Monday. “Telling me not to hesitate ever. Even if you’re a rookie, you just shoot the ball. And that just shows me that he has a lot of confidence in me, has a lot of trust in me to be able to go out there and knock those shots down.
“Having that confidence in me is big time because I can know at end of the day my coach has my back. And when he has your back and your teammates have your back, you’re going to be confident out there no matter what.”
Knecht is not only shooting his shot, but he’s making them with great accuracy.
After his scoring explosion against the Jazz, the 23-year-old Knecht is averaging 11.3 points (fourth among rookies entering Wednesday) on 52.3% shooting from the field and 46.4% on 3-pointers.
Knecht’s been on a heater lately: He’s averaging 24.3 points on 67.3% shooting (67.7% on 3s on 7.8 attempts per game) in the Lakers’ last four games, including three consecutive starts in place of Rui Hachimura, who’s been sidelined with a sprained left ankle. He’s set a career high in points in three of the last four games: 19 off the bench in the Nov. 13 home win over the Memphis Grizzlies; 27 in Saturday’s road win over the New Orleans Pelicans; and 37 on Tuesday.
“I found my shot, found my rhythm,” Knecht said to the SCNG. “Just playing confident, that’s what my teammates want me doing. [LeBron James], [Anthony Davis] want me to shoot the ball almost every time I have a good look. I have the confidence from JJ to run plays for me. Just going out there, doing what I do.”
To be clear, Knecht hasn’t lacked confidence.
But that trust from Redick and his coaching staff, and Knecht’s teammates throughout the Lakers’ locker room, was present before his recent hot streak.
Redick said he was “undeterred” in his belief that Knecht is a “tier one, top one-percent shooter” ahead of the Lakers’ Nov. 10 home win over the Toronto Raptors.
Knecht entered the matchup on a cold streak, averaging 6.2 points on 37.7% shooting and 27.8% on 3s in his first nine games. He scored five points and knocked down half of his shots (2 of 4, 1 of 2 from beyond the arc) against the Raptors before going on this scoring streak.
“You watch a guy in shooting drills, you watch a guy in small group games,” Redick said Tuesday after Knecht’s 37-point performance, “you watch a guy in pickup for a few weeks, it’s obvious that he’s a shotmaker.”
Knecht is more than a shooter with a variety of ways he can get his shot off efficiently – stationary, off movement, curling around screens or off the dribble. He’s a good cutter and vertical athlete who isn’t afraid to dunk on defenders and has shown the upside of a player who can create his own shots as a ball handler.
But the Lakers are hoping the threat of Knecht as a shooter will open the offense more than it already has. The Lakers have an offensive rating (points per 100 possessions) of 123.5 in the 301 minutes Knecht has played vs. a 110.3 offensive rating in the 371 minutes he’s on the bench – the biggest on/off individual offensive rating differential on the team.
“When people think of guys that can shoot the basketball, particularly guys that can shoot the basketball on the move, they only think of the shot,” Redick said after Monday’s practice. “The reality is, the threat of the shot causes the defense to open. And that’s the next evolution as a shooter. A guy like [Miami Heat wing] Duncan Robinson, who on a team with Bam [Adebayo] and Jimmy Butler, can draw two defenders. It’s the overreaction to a threat of the shot. That’s the next step. If you’re constantly in go mode, you can create overreactions, even when maybe there’s not a good shot there in any way.”
Knecht wasn’t expected to be available for the Lakers to select with the No. 17 pick in June’s NBA draft.
As the SEC Player of the Year and a Consensus first-team All-American, Knecht was projected to be a top-10 pick, with the expectation he’d be selected between Nos. 6-10.
But concerns about his age and defense led to him not being drafted as early as expected and landing right in the Lakers’ laps.
“They didn’t find DK,” James said Tuesday, referencing the Lakers’ front office. “The other 16 teams [expletive] it up. Did anybody watch him? They just didn’t [expletive] it up. You don’t find an SEC Player of the Year.”
Knecht will turn 24 on April 19, just after the regular season ends, making him one of the league’s oldest rookies. Redick acknowledged Knecht can improve defensively, while also believing he has the tools to be better than he is now.
“What’s going through my mind is I’m going to get my payback,” Knecht recalled to the SCNG of draft night. “At the end of the day, I know all those teams and stuff like that, that passed up because of my age and stuff, that’s fine, I don’t really care. [The] Lakers got confidence in me. And I came to a great spot with two great players that I get to learn from every single day. I landed in a great spot. I’m happy where I landed.”
It isn’t uncommon for players who were selected in the draft later than expected to keep a list in their head of the teams who passed on them. Golden State Warriors star Draymond Green famously listed the 34 players taken before him in the 2012 draft.
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Knecht acknowledged to the SCNG that he has his own list, but didn’t reveal many details, saying “I’m gonna show what they missed out on. I’m glad to be here, be a Laker, get to play [for] the greatest franchise.”
And making the most of the shots the Lakers want him to take.
“He’s a killer,” Lakers guard Austin Reaves said. “If you challenge him with something, he accepts any challenge that you throw at him. He’s going to take the challenge head on. There were multiple times when JJ was like, “Be ready to shoot,” and he’s like, “I’m always ready to shoot.” So, he’s got a really good mindset for how he plays the game. He can have nights like [Tuesday] he was unconscious, and win us games. That’s kinda what I expect him to do.”