Dalton Knecht’s audition was supposed to be a defensive one with a date attached. “If he wants to rewrite that ending, the audition runs through Halloween — and it’s a defensive one,” this site argued on Sept. 14, on the view that a wing shooting in the mid-30s from three was redundant on a roster that had spent its summer buying defense.
After the Los Angeles Lakers waived him on Oct. 19 to get to fifteen contracts, this site wrote on Nov. 1 that the question remained open, because Knecht had not played a competitive minute since Oct. 16 and his two-way assignment “does not produce a game for another week either” — a week measured against a Westchester Knicks opener this site put at Nov. 6.
It produced one two days early, and not in Westchester. Mike Brown put Knecht into the second quarter of New York’s 135-105 win over the Chicago Bulls on Nov. 4, and he finished with 10 points on 4-of-6 shooting, 2 of 4 from three, seven rebounds, an assist and a block in 16 minutes.
The Coach Who Sent Knecht to Westchester Had Him Down for Zero Minutes
Brown had been specific in late October that the plan was the G League. On Nov. 4 he said Knecht was “down for zero minutes” on his sheet, and that the change was improvised: “It’s just a gut feel to throw him in towards the end of that first half. He’s a scorer, not just a shooter,” Brown said, per Kristian Winfield of the New York Daily News.
The circumstances did some of the talking. Josh Hart was ruled out with right ankle soreness, and Knecht replaced Mikal Bridges with 3:20 left in the second quarter, New York already ahead 70-39.
Knecht’s own account was short. “I wasn’t surprised,” he told reporters. “I just came in ready to go.”
Sixteen Minutes Against a 1-6 Team Is Not the Defensive Test
The number to hold onto is 16. One game’s worth of minutes, entered at a 31-point lead, against a Chicago team that came in 1-6, in a game Brown was managing for rest — no New York starter played more than 28 minutes.
The Knicks were outscored by nine while Knecht was on the floor, the worst mark on the team in a 30-point win. Seven rebounds in 16 minutes is a real number, and Winfield described the block as a chase-down on Buddy Hield. Neither is a sample.
The question this site put to Knecht in September was whether he could defend well enough to hold a rotation spot, and 16 minutes cannot answer it in either direction.
What Broke, and What Still Hasn’t
The test this site designed never ran. The ten days of Lakers regular-season auditioning that were supposed to end on Oct. 31 were cancelled by roster arithmetic twelve days early, and nothing since has restored them. That reading stands.
What broke is narrower and worth stating anyway: the Nov. 1 piece treated the Westchester assignment as the reason no evidence could arrive, and the coach who made that assignment reached past it inside two weeks, with a rotation wing out, in a game he did not need Knecht to win.
The September read — a mid-30s shooter with no defensive case is redundant — may prove right about the Lakers and wrong about the league. Los Angeles spent its summer buying point-of-attack defense. New York took a scorer off the waiver market in October and found minutes for him in week two.
The thing to watch is not the 10 points. It is Nov. 8 at Cleveland, with Hart’s ankle still in question and most of Knecht’s two-way eligibility unused. If Brown’s gut feel hardens into a rotation spot, the September verdict was a verdict on a roster, not on a player.
Sources: ESPN box score, game ID 401909926; Kristian Winfield, New York Daily News; Carlos Yakimowich, Roundtable Sports, on the injury report; Shams Charania of ESPN and Michael Scotto of HoopsHype on the two-way signing.
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