2 Significant Teams Eyeing Lakers' First-Rounder As Potential Free Agent Addition

The Los Angeles Lakers made a somewhat surprising decision to get their roster down to its season-opening standard 15 spots by waiving former first-round pick Dalton Knecht. 

It's only somewhat surprising because Knecht had actually already been traded once by the Lakers, only to have that 2025 deal fall through because center Mark Williams (who was headed to Los Angeles in the exchange) failed his physical. 

Knecht's role with the Lakers continued to be significantly reduced over the past year. 

Now that he's out there on the open market, it appears that the defending champion New York Knicks might be interested in picking up the former 17th overall pick (2024). 

Knicks are among the teams with interest in former Laker Dalton Knecht, per league sources familiar with Knecth’s market. Knecht was waived prior to regular season. He’s eligible to sign a two-way deal. @TheSteinLine said earlier MIN had interest in Knecht

— Ian Begley (@IanBegley) October 22, 2026

Ian Begley reported that another team that could be interested in a two-way deal for Knecht is the Minnesota Timberwolves. A standard roster spot is not required for one of the three two-way contracts available to each team in the NBA. 

The Knicks make sense as a team that would want to take a shot on a potential high-upside young player without really adding to their soaring salary structure. They are operating with a hard-line mandate from owner James Dolan to avoid crossing the second apron, as he's treating that limit as a hard cap after finishing just $200,000 under it last season. The Knicks are currently about $3M below the second apron. 

“We’re willing to stretch, but there’s certain things in the NBA that you’d have to be suicidal to do. One of them is the second apron," said Dolan after the end of last season.

Knecht had a promising start to his NBA career in the first few months of his rookie season of 2024-25, but has fallen off significantly since then. Last season, in 54 games, averaging only 10 minutes a night, he registered 4.2 points per game, less than half of what he managed in his rookie year.