A bit over 24 hours earlier than being drafted seventeenth total by the Los Angeles Lakers within the 2024 NBA Draft, Dalton Knecht was in our workplace getting up photographs on the mini hoop.
Whereas the SEC’s scoring common chief from final season made his manner round to the ten designated capturing spots we’ve laid out throughout the ground, we realized that the ultimate sticker obtained swept up within the hustle of the day. So as a substitute, we gave him the choice to shoot from wherever on the ground. He might return to the fake free-throw line, strive one other from the sofa or hit a easy layup. As a substitute, with a pure shooter’s mentality, Knecht took a number of steps again into the hallway, placing not less than 25 ft of distance between himself and the ring that’s bolted to the opposing cement wall and netted the shot.
“I felt that confidence come up from the second I touched a basketball,” Knecht says. “My dad and mom have at all times made me tremendous assured, at all times advised me [to] belief your onerous work. I at all times felt like that. So it doesn’t matter what, once I step on that court docket, I’m gonna be probably the most assured participant on that court docket.
Knecht is a health club rat, whether or not that’s on a regulation-sized hoop or not. He’s drawn to the hardwood and its sights and sounds; the screeching of herringbone traction patterned outsoles, the scent of repolished flooring and the sound of the leather-based ball falling via aged nets. It’s an obsession that he’s fostered meticulously over the previous 5 years whereas on a journey unique to him and him alone.
“I’d say it’s simply form of like residence. Once you’re within the health club, taking part in your individual music, no matter you need, and also you simply exit hooping, both with some buddies or simply by your self, you simply go there to fall out of actuality, simply being by yourself, circulation by yourself stuff,” Knecht says.
Hailing from Thornton, CO, the 6-6 23-year-old, in a purely figurative sense, lit the Thompson-Boling Area ablaze each single evening as a fifth-year switch at Tennessee. From JUCO to the Massive Sky to taking part in below head coach Rick Barnes, Knecht stormed into the SEC with a chip carved into his shoulder this previous season, averaging a team-high 21.7 factors and 4.9 boards a recreation whereas capturing a ridiculous 39.7 % from deep. He dropped a 40 burger on Kentucky in early March, grew to become the primary participant within the SEC since Shaquille O’Neal to attain back-to-back 35-pieces and took residence SEC Participant of the 12 months in unanimous style.
Knecht’s story is the annual reminder that there are guys all all through mid-major applications who belong on the largest stage in faculty basketball. All they want is a sliver of alternative. And Knecht snatched his immediately.
With out an inflow of gives after graduating from Prairie View Excessive College in 2019, Knecht elected to go the junior faculty route. Surrounded by acres of prairie fields within the excessive plains of Sterling, CO, he poured his days into the health club. After two seasons and a first-team NJCAA All-American choice to his title, he set his sights on the Energy 5 conferences. After which the pandemic occurred. So he adjusted, transferring from Northeastern Junior Faculty to Northern Colorado within the Massive Sky Convention.
As a junior, Knecht acclimated himself to DI competitors amidst a nagging harm and a stacked roster stuffed with upperclassmen. Enter his senior 12 months, the place his 8.9 factors per recreation from the season prior erupted into 20.2 alongside the Massive Sky scoring title, solely confirming what he’d believed for years: betting on himself was value it. So he determined to do it once more.
On March 23, 2023, with a 12 months of eligibility remaining, Knecht entered the NCAA switch portal. Colorado, Oregon, Indiana and Tennessee all got here knocking. However there was a obvious distinction between the Volunteers and the remainder of the pack: head coach Rick Barnes had coached Knecht’s favourite participant of all time, Kevin Durant.
Knecht would be the first to confess he’s painstakingly combed via all of KD’s highlights on YouTube. He might not have the identical funky warm-up routine because the two-time NBA champ, but Knecht has drawn an affinity between their video games.
“I attempted to use as a lot as I can to my recreation, and it form of simply carried on to watching—at Tennessee with Coach Barnes—quite a lot of Kevin Durant’s highlights, in addition to Devin Booker’s,” Knecht says. “So, I simply attempt to take as many gamers as I can and put it in my recreation.”
All year long, Barnes and his beginning guard sat within the movie room and dissected Durant’s highs and lows from his lone season in Austin. They studied his cadence with the rock, his mastery of time and possession and his fluidity in iso eventualities. However primarily, they’d watch Durant’s monumental recreation in opposition to Texas Tech that featured 37 factors and 23 rebounds.
It didn’t even take a full recreation earlier than Knecht began amassing his personal mixture of highlights that Barnes will certainly present to his pupils sooner or later. “I’d say that dunk was Coach’s favourite reminiscence.”
“That dunk” was really a full-on poster. With quarter-hour left within the second half of a “pleasant” exhibition in opposition to Michigan State in late October, Knecht discovered himself pushing the tempo up the backcourt. In a second’s discover, he turned on the jets, misplaced his defender with a clear wrap-around the again on the three-point line, took two steps, rose up with the ball cradled in his proper arm and threw down a silencing dunk on one other Spartan defender. Straight filthy. The epitome of a physique.
“The primary thought was…I don’t even know. To be trustworthy, I can’t even bear in mind. However I simply know earlier than the sport, certainly one of my coaches, Rod Clark, he advised me to go punch it on any person in the event you get the possibility. And I had the possibility within the first half and I didn’t,” he says. “Then the second time, you form of noticed what occurred, and to see my teammates’ reactions, like Josiah [-Jordan James] operating as much as me, was priceless. It was enjoyable, simply placing on a present and displaying what I might do to the world.”
The poster heard from East Lansing to the Rocky Prime set the usual of what was to return from No. 3 in Knoxville. Knecht has a knack for main conferences in scoring. Go ask the NJCAA, Massive Sky and SEC. Lights out capturing was a continuing, curls within the midrange had been computerized, putback dunks got here and went and dusting defenders on the three-point line whereas ending contested lays grew to become routine.
“He additionally taught me on the offensive aspect about displaying the place gaps are and studying my secondary man, ’trigger Coach [Barnes] at all times advised me you will get by your man at any time, you simply gotta fear in regards to the secondary individuals,” Knecht says.
With round 20 hours between him and his hometown, Knecht scored tons of buckets evening after evening, serving to to steer the Volunteers to the Elite Eight, the place they fell to Zach Edey and the Purdue Boilermakers, regardless of Knecht dominating with 37 factors and cashing in 6 threes.
After lengthy years spent honing his craft and ready for the chance to position his guess, Knecht noticed many years of self-belief and confidence validated by the very best entity in hoops on June 26, when the Lakers snagged him with the No. 17 choose.
Some say he got here out of nowhere final season, however the good individuals of Thornton, Sterling, Greeley and Knoxville have been tapped in for years. In the meantime, Rob Pelinka advised reporters that new Lakers coach JJ Redick has already began drawing up pindown and ATO actions for his rookie sharpshooter.
“My journey’s not like everyone else’s, and that’s OK,” Knecht advised reporters in his first press convention as a Laker. “Simply creating my path is one thing particular, and quite a lot of youngsters will look as much as it. It’s actually cool to jot down my very own story.”
Portraits by Eli Selva. Images through Getty Photographs.
