Somewhere in a deep corner of the conversation, VFL Dalton Knecht is involved in arguably the most surprising trade in NBA history as the Los Angeles Lakers acquired star guard Luka Doncic in exchange for star forward Anthony Davis.
While Knecht wasn’t directly involved in the trade himself, the Lakers’ rookie could potentially be one of the biggest beneficiaries of the deal.
Doncic hasn’t seen the court in Dallas over the last six weeks as he deals with injury but there will come a time in the regular season or the playoffs when Doncic assumes the lead role for the Lakers’ offense.
One of the biggest traits that Mavericks fans noticed during Doncic’s maturation in Dallas was his ability to create open looks for his teammates. Doncic’s former teammates weren’t always the greatest at hitting those looks, but the looks were there regardless. Doncic demands so much defensive attention when he’s dancing around at the top of the key that it naturally moves the defense toward him in a magnetic way.
That leaves shooters open.
Dalton Knecht will have the ability to thrive as a perimeter catch-and-shoot wing when Doncic arrives on the court in Los Angeles. It’s not hard to imagine a situation where Doncic will drive the basketball down the right side of the court, draw a second or even a third defender, and then skip it all the way across the court to an open Knecht on the wing. Knecht will have more open shots than he will know what to do with if things really start to work out with Doncic.
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Doncic wants to score the ball, but he’s also smart. He understands the attention that he draws and wants to be a great passer and playmaker as well. During Doncic’s time in Texas, the Mavericks tried to surround him with strong three-point shooters such as Seth Curry, JJ Redick, Kyrie Irving, Tim Hardaway Jr., JJ Barea, and Kristaps Porzingis.
That’s also the reason why Dallas went out and acquired Klay Thompson, one of the greatest spot-up shooters of all time, last offseason — because of the ability to work Thompson in open space off of Doncic and Irving’s ballhandling. With Doncic sidelined for so much of this season, though, that hasn’t entirely come to fruition.
Through the first 47 games of his NBA career, Knecht is shooting 35.5% from three-point range, which is down from the 39.7% that he shot during his lone season with Tennessee. Perhaps an overly simple thought, but one way to get Knecht back up a few percentage points on the perimeter is just to give him more open shots. Doncic will unquestionably help Knecht find those open looks if the two can spend a good bit of time on the court together.
I write all of this simply because I’ve seen it firsthand myself. As a lifelong Dallas Mavericks fan, I’m putting aside my complete and utter misery and sadness to figure out how a former Tennessee great can benefit from this move.
A lot of what’s been said about Doncic here can work for LeBron James, too. James is an aging superstar but clearly attracts attention from the defense as well. And rather than a James-Davis duo for Los Angeles, a James-Doncic ballhandling duo should help create that much more space for Knecht to work with on the outside wings as well.
Unless Knecht gets traded.
With Los Angeles now possessing a guard-dominant roster, the Lakers’ front office could opt to trade Knecht for another big man to replace some of the production that Anthony Davis left with.
We’ll just have to see how it shakes out.
But it does look like Dalton Knecht could very well be a big winner from the historic Luka Doncic trade on Saturday night.