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Dalton Knecht had a heck of a season for the Tennessee Vols in 2023-24. With SEC player of the year and first-team All-American honors, Knecht etched his name into Tennessee lore as one of the greatest to play in the orange and white despite spending just one season in Knoxville.
He also did a whole heck of a lot for his NBA prospects as well. How much? According to the NBA, Knecht is expected to be a top ten pick. ESPN draft analyst Jonathan Givony shared part of the composite rankings that the NBA sent out to teams, and Knecht was listed in the 7-10 player ranking range.
The NBA sent teams a composite ranking of the Top 10 2024 draft prospects, as determined by a blend of publicly available rankings, a panel of experts and a retained-scouting service. This determines which teams will receive medical results based on which tiers players fall in.… pic.twitter.com/Nl4IeyjYWq
— Jonathan Givony (@DraftExpress) May 3, 2024
As the post indicates, the rankings are based on a lot of input, from draft experts and scouts to player ranking systems online. Those rankings matter because only certain teams are given access to certain ranked players' information.
Knecht is projected in the same bracket as former Kentucky stars Rob Dillingham and Reed Sheppard, all of whose information is accessible by the teams with picks 1 - 25 in the draft.
Who is picking at those spots? That's still to be determined. The NBA Draft lottery will take place on May 12, where the top 14 picks in the draft will be determined. Picks 15 through 30 in the first round have been set.
Will Knecht be the highest Tennessee player ever drafted? Unlikely. That honor goes to former Vols center Tom Boerwinkle, who earned All-American honors in 1968. He was the fourth pick in the 1968 draft by the Chicago Bulls, for whom he'd play with for a decade. Bernard King was taken by the New York Nets with the seventh overall pick in the 1977 draft. Dale Ellis went ninth overall to the Dallas Mavericks in 1983.
If the projection holds true, then Knecht should find himself in rare company among former Tennessee Vols.
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