When Los Angeles Lakers fans heard that LeBron James was went off to the locker room in the team's matchup against the Boston Celtics, the war flashbacks began to play. Thankfully for everyone involved, the injury has not appeared to be too serious.
Shams Charania reported that the injury timeline for LeBron is only expected to keep him out for around 1-2 weeks. James, himself, sounded pretty confident there is 'not much concern' with this latest groin issue.
However, there will still be a handful of minutes that need to be filled with the Lakers superstar unavailable for the next few games. One player who is surely in line to get a healthy chunk of those would be Dalton Knecht. Los Angeles will need to be mindful of threading the needle just right with his involvement during the upcoming matchups.
Lakers need a healthy dose of Knecht, without overdoing it
Imagine Knecht as the sun. You love to see it and it can be wonderful in a lot of instances. However, overexposure can leave harmful effects that often get you burned in the long term. This may come off as a weird analogy at first, but it will all make sense shortly.
It took the Lakers rookie a little bit of time to find his form again after the well-documented Mark Williams rescinded trade fiasco. However, with the injury report filling up of late, Knecht has seen more opportunity and benefitted from it in the process.
The Lakers sharpshooter has seen over 20 minutes per game over the last five contests. Knecht has averaged 12.0 points per game in his increaased role, connecting at a strong rate of 59.0 percent from the field and 48.1 percent from beyond the arc. The highlight performance from this stretch was undoubtedly the 19 points scored against the Los Angeles Clippers, which saw five triples drop in the process.
Knecht was always set to be a strong beneficiary of having Luka Doncic join the Lakers. The Slovenian superstar is great at creating easy, open looks on the perimeter. Knecht's shooting ability has allowed him to reap the rewards.
This encouraging stretch of play, that has showcased his scoring and shooting, is proving why the first-year pro should be an important part of the Lakers' plan to patch the LeBron-sized hole on offense. However, Knecht the same cannot be said of Knecht on the defensive end.
The Lakers rookie continues to yield subpar results on that side of the court for a team trying to build an identity as a defensive powerhouse. Knecht has posted a defensive box plus/minus of -1.4 this season, pairing with a lackluster defensive rating of 116.5.
The analogy of getting burned must be starting to make a lot more sense when recalling how much that has happened on the defensive end for the young wing.
The Lakers would be wise to feature Knecht as a big part of their team while James continues to be out of the lineup. However, ensuring the lineup surrounding their rookie is one filled with much more capable defenders would probably be for the best.