LOS ANGELES — The Los Angeles Lakers have one roster spot too many and less than two days to fix it, and the player most likely to pay the price is third-year wing Dalton Knecht.
Los Angeles carries 16 players on standard contracts and must get down to the 15-player limit before league rosters lock at 2 p.m. Pacific time Monday. The club has explored a trade instead of simply releasing someone and eating the salary, and published reports say it has held exploratory talks with Milwaukee on a framework that would send Knecht and second-round draft capital to the Bucks for backup center Jericho Sims. People briefed on those talks have voiced doubt the deal will get done.
Timing matters for the books. Knecht is due $4.2 million this season, and any player who has not cleared waivers by Monday adds a per-day cap charge, which is why many teams finished their camp cuts Saturday. The Lakers did trim two players that day, releasing Rafael Castro and Aniwaniwa Tait-Jones. The bigger decision is still hanging.
Knecht arrived as the 17th overall pick in the 2024 draft and showed early shooting touch. His path changed at the 2025 trade deadline, when Los Angeles agreed to send him, Cam Reddish and draft picks to Charlotte for center Mark Williams, a trade that was later rescinded. He slid out of the rotation last season, averaging 4.2 points and 1.4 rebounds, and no Laker with 30 or more appearances posted a lower net rating than his minus-8.5.
The exhibition schedule did not help his case. Across five preseason games he averaged 3.7 points while shooting 27% from the floor and 14% from three-point range. With offseason additions Quentin Grimes, Jaden Hardy and Matisse Thybulle deepening the wing rotation, there is little room left for him.
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