The Lakers Cut a First-Rounder to Keep Bronny James — and the Roster Math Still Doesn't Add Up

The Los Angeles Lakers entered the week needing to shed one guaranteed contract. They exited it having waived Dalton Knecht, the No. 17 pick in the 2024 draft, while keeping Bronny James — a decision that says less about Bronny's preseason than about how badly the back end of this roster was constructed.

The mechanics matter. Per The Athletic, the Lakers had one too many guaranteed deals and had to cut someone by Monday's 15-man deadline. Yahoo Sports reported LA had been shopping Jarred Vanderbilt and exploring trade avenues rather than simply releasing a former first-rounder for nothing. No deal materialized. So the odd man out became Knecht, a player who two years ago looked like a draft steal and who now joins a growing list of 2024 lottery-adjacent picks already off their original rosters.

The decline was real, and it was steep

Knecht's arc is not a mystery. As a rookie in 2024-25 he played 78 games at 19.1 minutes a night, averaging 9.1 points on 46.1% shooting and 37.6% from three — genuinely useful bench offense. Last season that collapsed to 54 games and 10.2 minutes, with his scoring average falling to 4.2 points and his three-point accuracy to 34.2%. He had fallen out of JJ Redick's rotation, and the preseason never produced a convincing argument to put him back in it.

That is a player-development failure as much as a roster-crunch casualty. Turning a first-round pick into a straight waiver — with no trade return — is the kind of asset bleed that compounds in a conference where Oklahoma City, Denver and Minnesota are not standing still.

Bronny stays, but not because he earned it

The louder storyline is the one the Lakers did not create. James shot 40.9% from the field in 42 appearances last season at nine minutes a game, and his preseason was rough enough that Redick said publicly, "I don't think he's played well," per CBS Sports, after a stretch of 11 points and 12 turnovers across four games. Jaden Hardy, by multiple accounts, passed him in the rotation.

Keeping Bronny was the path of least resistance given his guaranteed money and the optics — not a basketball verdict. Anyone framing this as a competition he won is misreading the transaction. The Lakers chose which guaranteed contract was easiest to eat.

What it means for a team with actual holes

The cut also closes off a pressure valve. Coverage throughout the preseason flagged two persistent needs: a backup center behind Walker Kessler and more reliable perimeter shooting off the bench. Waiving Knecht removes exactly the kind of flier that could have addressed the second one, and the frontcourt question remains unanswered.

The good news is that the top of this roster is real. Luka Dončić averaged 33.5 points, 8.3 assists and 7.7 rebounds across 64 games last season, and Kessler's preseason debut against Golden State — 11 points on 4-of-6 shooting, nine rebounds, a block and a steal in 16 first-half minutes — showed exactly why LA chased him. Dončić, Austin Reaves and Kessler are locked in as 60% of the starting five; the final two spots were still unsettled as of the weekend.

Also worth remembering: last season's 57-35 team finished just 14th in net rating at plus-1.1. That record outran the underlying profile. This is a rebuilt roster with three new starters after LeBron James left for Philadelphia, plus the departures of Deandre Ayton and Rui Hachimura, and it opens at home against the Warriors with real chemistry questions.

The schedule offers some cover — home dates with Golden State and the Clippers before a softer stretch. But the Knecht waiver is the tell: this is a team that spent its offseason chasing a contender's ceiling while leaving its depth to chance. One week in, that gamble has already cost them a first-round pick for nothing.