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Markieff Morris hadn’t met Dalton Knecht, knowing only of him as a bold scorer who dominated college basketball at Tennessee before flashing that ability in the NBA.
The two were now teammates, the veteran and the rookie, Morris traded back to the Lakers in the Luka Doncic deal last month while Knecht was sent back to the team after its trade with Charlotte for Mark Williams collapsed.
In their first meetings, Knecht wasn’t the same confident person or player. The business of the NBA had smacked him upside the head, his team showing little hesitation to send him out the door only to be forced into welcoming him back because of a failed physical by Williams.
At best it was awkward. At worst it was a problem.
As Knecht processed how he’d handle returning to a place where he no longer felt wanted, Morris approached him for a talk.
“Be ready. No matter what, be you,” he told Knecht. “When you get the ball, just go be you. And play like how you play, confidently, how you played at Tennessee.”
The talk mattered, Knecht regaining his footing, his joy on the court and his place in the Lakers’ rotation during their undefeated six-game homestand. During that stretch Knecht averaged 9.3 points and made almost 45.8% of his three-point shots. His buzzer-beater at the end of the third quarter Thursday propelled a comeback against the New York Knicks.
In that same game, Morris sat on the bench and sipped a cup of tea. He was fighting an illness but still was there, watching, talking, advising, even though he didn’t play a single minute during the homestand.
Acquiring Doncic has helped bring showtime back to the Lakers, to fill the courtside seats with A-list celebrities while one of basketball’s top showmen revels on the golden stage. Adding Morris, one of the NBA’s true tough-guy truth-tellers, has bolstered their locker room, a behind-the-scenes advantage the Lakers had lacked since they parted ways with the journeyman who helped them win a championship in 2020.
“I missed him,” LeBron James told The Times. “…We’ve been in the foxhole together. We’ve been on the floor during big games together. And there’s someone whose opinion I value very much when I come off the floor. He’s watching it. He’s seeing it. I’m just happy to have him back.”
Morris wishes Lakers fans saw him more. The competitive fire that’s kept him in the NBA for 14 seasons still burns intensely, with an unwavering belief that he’s got productive minutes left in his legs.
Luka Doncic scores the first five points of overtime and finishes with 32 points to help power the Lakers to a thrilling 113-109 overtime victory over the Knicks.
Morris also knows that his ability to offer the same kind of advice to both Knecht and James, a 22-year veteran, puts him in a unique position in the locker room.
“The world that we live in today, a lot of people can’t take the truth in their face. A lot of people don’t know what respect is,” Morris said. “We live in a world with a lack of respect. And that’s what I stand on. It doesn’t matter who you are. That’s first things first with me. And I feel as though, me personally, if I can’t say what I want, if I can’t say the right things to the people that need to hear them, I’m useless. There’s not too many people in the world like me that’s going to just be up front with anybody. That’s the way it needs to be said.
“...My 14th year. I don’t play anyway. So what? You going to get mad because I said a certain thing? I don’t have nothing to lose.”
By the time Morris returned to the Lakers, James had fully bought in to the coaching of JJ Redick and his staff, responding to blowout losses in Minnesota and Miami with a level of consistent energy and defensive attention that’s rocketed his team up the Western Conference standings.
But still, the Lakers missed having a particular set of guardrails.
James went on deep runs with coaches in their first year with the Lakers twice before, winning a title with Frank Vogel and going to the conference finals with Darvin Ham. But those teams had veterans who James trusted, particularly Morris and a close confidant in Jared Dudley in 2020, and Tristan Thompson, who won a championship with James in Cleveland, joining the Lakers’ bench in 2023.
The Lakers, though, balked at keeping those players around, preferring ones they felt could better contribute on the court.
“Obviously our league is trying to get away from having guys like that around,” James said. “Like the vets, that means something to a team.”
Not every veteran is able to lead the same way as Morris. Some still have visions of their younger selves, taking over games and dominating. Others aren’t as naturally gritty, as physically intimidating — “He’s big as s—!” Knecht said of Morris — or willing to get uncomfortable.
“It’s very valuable to have a guy like that, a voice, an older voice, someone who’s seen it all in the NBA, someone who’s won a championship, obviously that helps as well,” Redick said. “He’s been great on the bench with talking with guys, making sure our bench energy is good. I told him the other day, we see it and we appreciate it and we all just value what he’s doing right now from that aspect in leadership.”
Austin Reaves, who like Knecht had never met Morris before becoming teammates, said Morris pulled him aside during one game last month to give him advice on how to better handle ball pressure by backing up closer to half-court to start pick-and-roll actions with opposing big men, creating more space to gain an advantage.
“He’s just constantly talking in-game. I think he has a very good IQ and there’s been a couple situations where he’s dissected the game from the bench and come to me about what I could do to be more effective,” Reaves said. “…It’s just little things like that he sees within the game, but I think he does a good job of vocalizing them.”
And because Morris has been in the foxhole with James, he can even get on the NBA’s all-time leading scorer when the moment calls for it.
“[LeBron] needs help too. Everybody just think he knows everything,” Morris said. “Yeah, he knows the game a lot, but for him, he can use a guy that’s, ‘Yo, did you see that right there? You can do this.’ Yeah, and that’s me. I can say, ‘Look. Bron, get your ass back. Look, you got to run back too.’”
The list of people who can do that with James is short, and as they age out of the league, that list shrinks every season. Morris is one of a few left. And while James is out for the next few weeks because of a groin injury, the Lakers can lean on Morris’ ability to connect with younger players like Knecht.
As teams build their rosters each offseason, they look for shooters such as Knecht, for defensive stoppers such as Jarred Vanderbilt, for offensive initiators and enforcers and for shot blockers.
In Morris, they have a different kind of specialist who does his work without picking up a basketball, by giving honest assessments to everyone without prejudice.
“I’m not scared,” Morris said. “…I do the same thing with Luka, same with Kyrie [Irving]. It doesn’t matter. Because at the end of the day, I feel like that would make them better. The same way they would do it to me to make me better.. You know what I’m saying? If I’m wrong about something, tell me I’m wrong. Don’t just let me say the wrong [thing], you know what I’m saying?
“And the league just doesn’t value it.”
That might be true, but the Lakers know how much Morris does and how much he will matter as they chase a championship.
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