Why the Lakers got a 'steal' with Dalton Knecht with 17th overall pick
Yahoo Sports’ Isis Young, Krysten Peek, Lamar Hurd and Tom Haberstroh react to Los Angeles taking the Tennessee scorer in the 2024 NBA draft.
Video Transcript
The Lakers select Dalton connect the fifth year guard from Tennessee sec player of the year, one of the best scores in college basketball last season.
So the Lakers go a little bit of a mature pick Tom starting with you thought JJ Reddick is going to love this.
He can shoot the rock 47% on unguarded catch and shoots this past year, Tennessee, the best scoring wing in the draft and he slides all the way to 17.
I don't think the Lakers thought they were going to get a deal and can we can we please just pause and talk about how he is.
One of the best stories in this draft started as a under the radar recruit out of high school had to go to play two years at you before transferring to Northern Colorado.
Then he got the call up in the transfer portal.
He chose Tennessee because he wanted to work on his defense and his foot speed over North Carolina and Kansas and now he's a first round draft pick and he's going to go play with lebron James and Anthony Davis and play for a new coach and JJ Reddick this is an unbelievable steal I think for, for the Lakers.
And he reminds me a lot with his shooting ability of Klay Thompson just in the sense where he can be that guy on the perimeter and you don't know, you got, you're keeping him guessing.
He shoots lights out from all over the court is a three level scorer and someone that can be plugged in right away with this Lakers team that sounds like as perfect of a fit as I think we've covered tonight because the Lakers again, they live at the rim second in the league in terms of percentage of shots at the rim.
A Ds in the paint lebron's in the paint ball is in lebron's hands.
So as we were talking earlier, the Lakers have to have somebody that can play without the ball in their hands, but also when it gets to him, make something happen and does all of that.
Yeah, lebron James has assisted more three pointers than anyone in NBA history and it's gonna go even higher with this guy on the floor.
Yeah, connect shot just under 40% from three last season and over 46% from the field.
So an efficient player, we know lebron and AD are gonna like that good pick from the Lakers.