Former Tennessee basketball star Dalton Knecht received an invite to the NBA Draft green room on Tuesday, ESPN’s Jonathan Givony first reported on Tuesday night.
What does being invited to the green room mean? That Dalton Knecht and his family can attend this year’s NBA Draft at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn.
The NBA typically only gives out green room invitations to players who are projected to go in the top 14 picks of the draft. Knecht would be the first Tennessee player under Rick Barnes to attend the NBA Draft.
ESPN currently projects Knecht to go to the San Antonio Spurs at pick No. 8 in the NBA Draft. That would pair the former Tennessee star with young Spurs’ star Victor Wembanyama. If the Spurs select Knecht at No. 8, he would be the highest drafted Tennessee basketball play since the New Jersey Nets selected Bernard King with the seventh pick in the 1977 NBA Draft.
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Knecht turned in one of the best individual seasons in Tennessee basketball history in his lone season in Knoxville. The 6-foot-6 Knecht averaged 21.7 points, 4.9 rebounds and 1.8 assists per game. He was even better in SEC play where he averaged 25.5 points per game on 48% shooting from the field and 42% shooting from three-point range.
The star wing earned a number of number of honors during his lone season at Tennessee including as the Julius Irving Award, a consensus First Team All-American and the SEC Player of the Year.
Knecht was a spectacular scorer while leading Tennessee to just its second Elite Eight in school history. He scored 40 points once, 35-plus points six times, 30-plus points seven times and 25-plus points 13 times during the 2023-24 season.
