For the first time since 2016, the Los Angeles Lakers are 1-0 through one game of the season.
After having lost seven consecutive season openers coming into Tuesday night, the streak has finally snapped, and they will look to continue that trend into Friday night as they take on the Phoenix Suns.
The Lakers looked like a different team thanks to their first-year head coach JJ Redick. L.A. brought the hustle, intensity, and hunger on both sides of the ball, which was just a sight to see. Night and day from that other coaching staff. If Tuesday told anything about the rest of this season, then this team will be in great position to compete at the highest level. With Anthony Davis playing like an MVP candidate – as he does when the game is at its best – NBA Hall of Famer and TNT analyst Charles Barkley was impressed with what he saw from Lakers rookie guard Dalton Knecht.
Barkley loved what he saw from Knehct and went so far as to criticize the NBA general managers for letting him fall in the draft to the Lakers.
“First of all, these NBA General Managers have no clue what they’re doing,” Barkley said on TNT’s Inside the NBA. “Letting the Lakers get Dalton Knecht was one of the stupidest things I’ve ever seen. That’s a bad boy right there. Dalton Knecht, remember that name y’all.”
Knecht was projected to be a lottery pick in the 2024 NBA Draft, but because he is 23 years old, many teams had concerns about his potential not getting any better in his career, thus causing him to fall all the way to the Lakers at No. 17.
So far, he’s looking like the steal of the draft, and he is what L.A. needs right now. He’s mature and could be played in the lineup right from day one, as we saw on Tuesday night.
Knecht finished his NBA debut with five points, dishing out two assists while grabbing one rebound in 16 minutes of action in the Lakers’ 110-103 win over the Timberwolves. He had a solid debut, making two of four field goal attempts and one of three from beyond the three-point arc.
Knecht comes into the NBA from Tennessee, in which he was one of the best players in the league. He played just one season as a Volunteer and put up 21.7 points, 4.9 rebounds, and 1.8 assists per contest.
Now, he is with L.A. and may be able to play an important part with the team in the future.
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