There are certain topics that will bring immediate discomfort to a franchise. Asking the Los Angeles Lakers where they were and what they were doing during the 2023 and 2024 NBA Drafts is one of those moments that will warrant war flashbacks.
With the 17th overall pick in the 2023 NBA Draft, the Lakers selected Jalen Hood-Schifino. The tall point guard never really found his footing in Los Angeles, or in the NBA really. The former first-round pick was reduced to being a throw-in when the stunning Luka Doncic trade went down.
The Lakers got a do-over in 2024. It was the exact same spot too. Los Angeles selected Dalton Knecht with the 17th overall pick in the 2024 NBA Draft. There were a handful of quality players who went immediately after Knecht that made this one look rough as well.
Rob Pelinka and the front office got two consecutive chances to make the 17th selection in the draft. They took two shots at adding some scoring punch to the team, albeit in different ways. What they got was back-to-back situations that look brutal in hindsight.
Jalen Hood-Schifino and Dalton Knecht were both big misses for the Lakers
The Lakers have not had a strong bench unit for a while. They rank at the bottom of the NBA this season for scoring. Los Angeles was bottom-three in 2024-25 as well. The same can be said of the production from the second unit during the 2023-24 season too.
Getting little to no scoring spark from the reserves is a tough obstacle to navigate constantly. The Lakers have managed, but if they just nailed one of these two selections, they may not have needed to.
Hood-Schifino is certainly the worse pick of the two. Jaime Jaquez Jr. went immediately after the former Lakers guard. That is a backup who should warrant Sixth Man of the Year consideration this season.
Jaquez is averaging 16.5 points, 5.3 rebounds, and 4.8 assists, shooting 53.3 percent from the field, in 2025-26. His 29.7 minutes per game have primarily come off the bench, with him only starting one game thus far during this campaign.
Knecht is a far more defensible selection, and may even be a victim of his circumstances as much as anything else.
However, the Lakers could have had the likes of Tristan Da Silva, Jaylon Tyson, or Kyshawn George with that selection. Any one of those players could have fit better with the team and offered more consistent scoring punch off the bench.
Getting more buckets is certainly far from the biggest problem plaguing the Lakers. However, perhaps a stronger second unit would leave their stars more energy to contribute elsewhere on the court — like defense.
The beautiful thing about basketball is how connected everything is. In this case, though, there is actually an ugliness to that reality for the Lakers.