Lakers Introduce Dalton Knecht & Bronny James
The Los Angeles Lakers’ General Manager Rob Pelinka and Head Coach J.J. Redick hosted a press conference today at the Lakers’ practice facility in Los Angeles, California to introduce their two draft picks, Dalton Knecht and Bronny James.
Their has been a lot of chatter about James Jr. and his draft postion, as well as many feeling like he did not deserve to even be in the draft and a lot of those topics were addressed by Bronny as he answered many questions from the Lakers media.
“I’ve already seen a lot it, the media talking about how I might not deserve an opportunity” Bronny states. He continues, “You know I’ve been dealing with stuff like this my whole life, so it’s different, it’s more amplified for sure, but I can get through it.”
Bronny is coming off of his freshman season at USC, being highly recruited, where he averaged 4.8 points per game and 2.1 assists on 37% shooting in 25 games.
His stats don’t fairly reflect how great he can play on both ends of the floor because he suffered cardiac arrest sometime before the start of his freshman year at USC that saw him miss more than half of his college season, but he does posses great ability to play on defense and he shoots the ball extremely well on offense with great potential at being an off ball slasher and a great penetrating guard with the ball in his hands.
For Knecht, he was a steal for both Pelinka and Reddick at pick 17 because they both had him going higher in the draft.
However, he was there and he also provides great shooting for the Lakers much like Redick did in his 15 year NBA career and both Knecht and Redick spoke to their visions of how Knect will be used in the coaching system.
“Me and Coach Barnes (Knecht’s most recent coach at Tennesee) watched a lot of film on JJ and how he comes off screens, gets a lot of openings and even creating space before he runs of the screens” Knecht said. “So I’m excited to learn from him and how he sees the game.”
Redick, happy to have been able to select Knecht at 17 in the draft spoke to his talent, saying “first off I was thrilled. We didn’t think Dalton would be available at 17but he provides something we don’t have. He’s a movement shooter, he can play off of that bounce and he can score at all three levels. I’m excited to coach him.”
Both Knecht and James Jr. will get their first opportunity at the proffessional level when they see action in the NBA’s Summer League which begins July 15th in Las Vegas as well as the California Classic in L.A.
Watch the Lakers introductory press conference of both James and Knecht in the link below.