10 Huge winners and unfortunate losers from the first round of the 2024 NBA Draft
By Matt Sidney
Loser: Dalton Knecht
Dalton Knecht is a lottery talent. For picks 11-16, it felt like Knecht was going to hear his name called. However, time and again he was passed up and it was on to the next pick. The Los Angeles Lakers stopped his draft night slide by selecting him at No. 17. (This feels like a make-up pick for missing on Cam Whitmore last year, but we move on).
Knecht is a round-one loser for two main reasons. The first reason is that many mock drafts and pre-draft analyses had Knecht going in the lottery. That is inherently a loss. The second reason is that he will now be on a team that will have NBA Championship aspirations, with a fanbase that expects immediate success, all while co-existing with a player who has had trouble assimilating with draft picks before. **coughs... LeBron... coughs**
Knecht will be under immense pressure and under a microscope with the expectations of having to contribute immediately and that's tough for any rookie. Here's to hoping he figures it out quickly, but for now, it's loser life.