The Lakers have 16 standard contracts and room for 15, and Dalton Knecht has the most to lose before the roster is set on Oct. 19.
Every player on the Los Angeles Lakers roster will report to training camp on Sept. 29 knowing one of the 16 standard contracts has to go before the season starts, and Dalton Knecht has the most reason to worry.
Rosters must be set by Oct. 19, one day before the opener, so the front office has to trade somebody or waive somebody, and the case against Knecht is not hard to build.
Knecht may be on the hot seat, and Lakers analyst Trevor Lane went further in comments.
"My assumption is that if they had to make a decision right now, they would not pick up the $6.4 million team-option on Dalton Knecht. He's got between now and Halloween to change their mind."
The real deadline is Nov. 2 because Oct. 31 falls on a Saturday, but the point holds.
Lane added that if the option is not picked up, Knecht is probably the clear candidate to get cut.
The Numbers Went Backward
As a rookie Knecht played 78 games, started 16, and averaged 9.1 points in 19.2 minutes while shooting 37.6 percent from three.
Last season he played 54 games with one start and averaged 4.2 points in 10.2 minutes, and his three-point mark slipped to 34.2 percent.
A wing who shot that well at 23 should not lose nearly half his minutes at 24 on a team that needs shooting around Luka Dončić and Austin Reaves, but that happened, and he turned 25 in April.
Too Many Guards in Front of Him
July is when the backcourt filled up.
Collin Sexton and Quentin Grimes both made their deals official that month, and Sexton has already explained why he picked Los Angeles.
Jaden Hardy arrived from Washington in the Deandre Ayton trade with $6 million coming this season and next, and Matisse Thybulle agreed to a one-year contract the same month.
Bronny James is 21 and has a team option for 2027-28, and Lane noted the Lakers guaranteed the half of his salary that was not guaranteed this summer, which says they want to see what he can do off the ball next to the stars.
Then there is Cameron Carr, the No. 24 pick in this year's draft, a guard out of Baylor who Lane said does the same things Knecht does, only more of them and better.
Reaves and Dončić hold the ball, and the minutes behind them are spoken for.
What the Lakers Should Do
Knecht is owed $4,201,080 this season with a $6.45 million team option hanging over next year, and the right move is to shop him before camp and take a second-round pick if one is there, which Ahmad floated as a possibility, because waiving a 25-year-old on a guaranteed deal for nothing is the worst version of this.
Lane framed a release as doing right by him, a fresh start somewhere he can get real minutes, and that is fair too.
Either way, the group that spent four days in Slovenia with Dončić this offseason already looks like a finished roster, and Knecht is the one piece that does not fit, with 23 days until camp to change that.
