Former Tennessee star Dalton Knecht turned in the best performance of his young NBA career on Wednesday night as the Los Angeles Lakers defeated the Memphis Grizzlies 128-123.
After five straight quiet performances, Knecht scored a career-high 19 points while dishing out three assists and grabbing two rebounds. The rookie shooting guard was incredibly efficient scoring, making seven-of-eight attempts from the field and all five of his attempts from three-point range.
That type of shooting outburst isn’t a new sight to Tennessee fans as they watched Knecht shine in his lone season in Knoxville. Lakers star LeBron James also thought it was a vintage Knecht college performance in the win.
“We leaned on Dalton Knecht, that’s what we did,” James said of how the Lakers survived despite foul trouble. “AD got in the foul trouble and our first round pick hit a hot streak. He looked like he was back at Tennessee. We leaned on him and I just tried to sprinkle in a couple players here or there.”
James was pretty darn good against the Grizzlies too, totaling 35 points, 14 assists and 12 rebounds. It was the superstar’s third straight triple-double doing it during his 22nd season in the NBA.
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Knecht is averaging 7.3 points and 1.8 rebounds and 1.3 assists per game through his first 11 NBA games. The 6-foot-6 shooting guard has scored double digits twice while having seven games scoring five or less points this season. He’s shooting 47% from the field and 37% from three-point range.
The Lakers selected Knecht with the 17th pick in the 2024 NBA Draft after his electric super senior season at Tennessee. Knecht racked up a number of honors last season, winning SEC Player of the Year and the Julius Irving Award while being a finalist for the Wooden Award.
On the court, Knecht averaged 21.7 points and 4.9 rebounds per game while leading Tennessee to the outright SEC Regular-Season Championship and its second Elite Eight appearance in program history.
Los Angeles are off to a 7-4 start to the 2024-25 season and are currently in sixth place in the Western Conference standings.
