Dalton Knecht wasn't drafted in the first round to play defense. And he hasn't. But, like, at all, and if that trend persists, it will make Knecht's place in the Lakers rotation murky. The second-year man will struggle to claw his way back into the Lakers lineup, which lost Dorian Finney-Smith but added both Marcus Smart and Jake LaRavia this summer.
With Smart's history as a lockdown defender and LaRavia's underrated chops on that end, Lakers head coach JJ Redick will probably be more inclined to call on those guys throughout the season. Knecht fell out of the team's rotation last year in large part because other teams — if he's not hitting 3-pointers at an elite clip, it becomes tougher to justify giving him nightly run, which is a sad development for fans who watched him light up the nets so early in his career.