Two noteworthy recent first round prospects emerged from the preseason's final cut wave- Walter Clayton Jr., a player whom the Washington Wizards have already enjoyed their unique experience with, and Dalton Knecht.

Unlike Clayton, who already had to endure a midseason trade as a rookie before eventually getting picked up on a two-way deal with the Dallas Mavericks, Knecht gave his former employers a sizable, multi-season sample size during his time with the Los Angeles Lakers. He spent two years struggling to live up his pre-draft hype as an experienced scorer with a silky-smooth jumper, eventually forcing his first encounter with the Wizards' online orbit.

As a casualty of last-second roster slimming, he was released to the wild for the first time, and Washington was favored by ClutchPoints' Brett Siegel as a team likely to ponder a "second draft" sort of rehabilitative project in Knecht.

Now, that wasn't anything more than a shot in the dark from Siegel, who couldn't help but notice that the Wizards could benefit from a pure shooting talent following a scenery change, though few D.C. sports fans should have been surprised when it was the New York Knicks, not the Wizards, who threw Knecht his life raft.

Washington has no more contracts to hand out, as they hold their own two-way pieces in higher regard than Siegel instinctively assumed.

Diving Into the Wizards' Two-Way Backup

The Wizards and their cramped roster ought to use their fringe-lineup slots carefully, and that's what they did over the offseason. Besides Felix Okpara, the second-rounder joining AJ Dybantsa as the squad's 2026-27 rookies, the squad was sure to maintain one of the handier role players from their previous campaign in signing up for another year of Jamir Watkins' services.

Unfortunately for the defensive specialist, Watkins tore his ACL mere minutes into his NBA Summer League Debut in August while holding his own against Utah Jazz star Darryn Peterson, quickly forcing management's hand. After having already re-upped Watkins for another two-way deal, they'd either have to eat the roster hole in keeping the downed defender alongside his teammates or waive him entirely in exchange for an immediate on-court weapon.

And someone like Knecht is worth a flier. Even if the Wizards did pass on him twice before he went 17th in the 2024 NBA Draft, their younger prospects would appreciate him when he's on. He shot 43.9% from 3-point range on over five nightly attempts through November of his rookie season alongside LeBron James and Anthony Davis, but his streakiness only spiked after his proposed midseason trade to the Charlotte Hornets fell through after being initially accepted and publicized.

All we know now that he's joined the reigning champions while Reece Beekman remains put as the Wizards' third and final two-way swing, as he fills the niche for a defensive-minded guard that Watkins left behind. He, too, remains on the books, despite how easily his organization could have dumped him for an alternative.

Had Beekman not impressed Washington's brass over the summer and throughout the preseason, and had Watkins not looked like an option worth regularly deploying within the deepened Wizards supporting cast during his promising 2025-26 debut, maybe the team could have raised their hands during the Knecht bidding war. But now that he's officially on to New York, the fact that minimal substantive connections surfaced between the player and franchise during his availability implies just how closely the Wizards hold their own development projects.