Dalton Knecht

Knecht's trophy case is thin, and that is part of what makes him interesting. He has no NBA hardware, no All-Rookie team nod, no championship ring. What he has is a genuinely unusual climb: junior college to Northern Colorado to Tennessee to the 17th pick, a route almost nobody takes to the first round.The honors he does hold are college conference recognition, All-Big Sky at Northern Colorado and All-SEC at Tennessee. For a player who was not recruited out of high school, those are real markers of how far he moved up. The next few years in New York will decide whether that climb has a second act.