A deep dive into the Great Barrier Thief

Dyson Daniels’ defense has become one of the hottest stories in the NBA.

On September 30th, when Dyson Daniels first introduced himself to Atlanta Hawks fans after being acquired from the New Orleans Pelicans, one of the first things that he said during his Media Day press conference was that he had “a big goal of making first team All-Defense” this season.

While this was an admirable goal, and exactly the type of statement that Hawks fans wanted to hear from the player who would be replacing Dejounte Murray in their starting lineup, the reaction from some circles of the fanbase likely went something like this: “I like his mentality, but let’s just hope he can shoot well enough to stay on the court in crunch time.”

For a fanbase who’s team has finished in the bottom-half of the league in defensive rating in each of the last seven seasons, hasn’t had a player selected to an All-Defensive Second Team since Paul Millsap in 2016, or an All-Defensive First Team since Dikembe Mutombo all the way back in 1998, the idea that a player who had averaged just 20 minutes per game in his first two NBA seasons would finish the year as one of the five best defenders in the league (regardless of position) was always going to be met with skepticism — especially after how the last “All-Defense caliber” guard acquisition went*.

*as the old saying goes: fool me once…

Well the 2024-25 season isn’t even one month old, but it’s safe to say that Daniels has already made believers out of Hawks fans as his smothering defense has been a godsend for their team, and it has been one of the hottest stories in the NBA in the early going.

By this point, we’ve all seen the plaudits and mind-blowing statistics online, but frankly, they’re so impressive that I have zero reservations about repeating them again here.

Despite playing in just 13 out of a possible 15 games up to this point, Daniels’ 44 steals lead the league by a laughable 15-steal margin. His 91 deflections are on pace to smash the regular season record of 302* by nearly 200 deflections.

Prior to Sunday’s loss in Portland, he had finished four consecutive games with 15+ points and 5+ steals, the longest such streak since Michael Jordan accomplished it in 1990*. He’s one of just three players** playing more than 20 minutes per game that averages 6+ ‘stocks’ (steals + blocks) per 100 possessions.

*Prompting glorious reactions from Hawks’ fans such as this. Shoutout @middyishappy for the outstanding tweet.

**At least 10 games played; Tari Eason (yep) and Victor Wembanyama are the other two.

In case there were (somehow) any doubters, he just capped off Atlanta’s win over the Sacramento Kings on Monday night with an incredible game-sealing block on De’Aaron Fox — the hottest offensive player in the league before venturing too close to ‘The Great Barrier Thief’.

It’s clear as day that Daniels is breaking out before our very eyes. His relentless effort on the defensive side of the ball has put him on pace for a historical defensive season, and his odds for both the Defensive Player of the Year and Most Improved Player awards have already soared to the third and fourth-shortest at this very early stage of the season.

Today, let’s dive into the finer points of his play on both ends of the floor. We’ll gush over his defense a bit more, talk about his offense, and a few areas of growth for him on that side of the ball.

At 21 years of age, just how good of a player is he at the moment? How high is his ceiling?

Let’s get into it.

Defense

As you might imagine, I have very few (actually zero) critiques for Dyson Daniels’ defense at this stage of the season. For a man who is averaging 3.4 steals per game and has earned the nickname, “The Great Barrier Thief,” what else is there to say?

While we’ve gone over many of the numbers above, I’ve saved the one that I find the most revelatory for this section here. We know that Daniels’ ridiculous steal rate is immensely valuable for the Atlanta Hawks. However, his early season play had me thinking: is it possible to quantify this? How many points are Daniels’ steals actually worth for this team?

Doing a bit of number crunching (with the aid of some statistics from nba.com/stats and cleaningtheglass.com, full methodology at the bottom***), and by taking into account the average points per possession the Hawks allow on possessions that do not end in a turnover, as well as the bump in offensive efficiency (points per possession) the Hawks’ receive on possessions that begin with a steal, we find that each Atlanta Hawks steal is worth approximately 1.53 points per possession. That means through his steals alone (he has 44 steals total), Daniels has added a whopping 67 points for Atlanta this season.

To put this number into context, Atlanta’s plus-minus mark for the season is ‘minus 51’ giving them a net rating of -3.6 on the season. If Daniels was accumulating steals at a lower rate — let’s use Dejounte Murray’s steal average from last season (1.4 steals per game) as a proxy — Atlanta’s plus-minus would drop to ‘minus 90’, and their net rating would fall all the way down to -6.2 (just a shade above the bottom-five mark in the league this season).

With these numbers in mind, it’s not hyperbole to say that Daniels’ presence on the roster is the difference between this team being a scrappy one as opposed to a bottom-feeder — something that’s backed up by the eye test as well.

If you have some time to kill, sit back, relax and enjoy the video below which is simply five minutes of Dyson Daniels wreaking havoc on the defensive side of the ball (courtesy of Intuition Hoops Two).

No math is needed to see how valuable Daniels’ defense is.

Offense

While Daniels is perhaps the best perimeter defender in the entire NBA, there is still a lot of room for him to grow on the offensive end of the floor — primarily as it pertains to his efficiency as a scorer.

Prior to the season, there were a lot of question marks about how his offense would translate after he averaged just 5.8 points (on a not-so-pretty* 52.8% true shooting percentage), 2.7 assists and a turnover in just over 22 minutes a night (on a minuscule 12.4% usage rate**) last season in New Orleans. And while there have been a lot of positives, it hasn’t all gone perfect for Daniels here in Atlanta.

*19th percentile amongst all players last season, per dunksandthrees

**13th percentile amongst all players last season, per dunksandthrees

As a scorer, despite the fact that he’s nearly tripled his points per game average from last season, he’s continued to struggle from both the free throw line and three-point range, shooting just 14-for-23 (60.9%) from the stripe and 16-for-56 (28.6%) from beyond the arc* (with the majority of these looks being ‘wide-open’) in his first 13 games as a Hawk. He’s shooting just 11-for-40 (27.5%) on catch-and-shoot threes this season, which — as is the case for many young players — will be a massive swing skill for him going forward.

*Though it’s worth noting that Daniels does have the clutch factor going for him early on this season, as he’s 3-for-5 from downtown in ‘clutch’ situations this season.

That being said, he’s shown some impressive touch from floater-range this season, and has actually been one of Atlanta’s most efficient scorers at the rim, shooting 71.4% within 4-feet this season*. Daniels’ 8.8 drives per game rank third on the team this season, and I’ve been impressed with how he uses his 6’11” wingspan to pull off some crafty finishes around the basket (examples below).

*A whopping nine-percentage-point increase from his mark from last season (62.2%) on nearly 4-times the number of attempts per game — though to be fair his scoring efficiency from this area does get a boost due to the number of ‘pick-sixes’ he generates for himself.

Additionally, as we discussed in his player preview, Daniels is a really smart cutter and has routinely used his off-ball movement to create easy looks for himself around the hoop this season.

Playing alongside elite passers in Trae Young and Jalen Johnson within an offensive system predicated on sharing the ball, Daniels’ off-ball movement fits the team like a glove.

Something I would not mind seeing more of is possessions that involve a Trae Young//Dyson Daniels pick-and-roll. Young’s gravity with the ball in his hands nearly always draws two defenders to the ball which frees up Daniels for one of his floaters or gives him an opportunity to create a quality look for a teammate with a 4-on-3 advantage.

Speaking of Daniels’ playmaking ability, though he’s only averaged 3.1 assists per game so far this season, his turnover percentage (12.4%) is right around the league average, and is actually lower than it was during his time in New Orleans — which is quite impressive when you consider the increase in ball-handling/playmaking duties he’s had to shoulder in Atlanta.

While his ‘per game’ assists average won’t blow anybody away, I’ve been impressed with the variety of passes he’s displayed early on, as he’s tallied assists out of the pick-and-roll, off of his own drives, and has also done a good job spotting cutters both in the half-court and in transition (as shown in the clips below).

Conclusion

It’s hard not to get overly excited about what Dyson Daniels has shown in his first 13 games for the Atlanta Hawks. If he can sustain this level of play on the defensive side of the ball and continues to grow more comfortable in an on-ball offensive role, the rest of the league should be absolutely terrified at the fact that he is just 21 years old and still has a ways to go before reaching the peak of his powers.

In terms of areas to improve/what to watch for from Daniels going forwards, it’s difficult to ask any more from him on the defensive side of the ball this season. However, if he can continue to be vocal, help his teammates out, and take on even more of a leadership role on this end (something he’s talked about doing), the team might just be able to drag their defensive rating into the upper-half of the league for the first time since the 2016-17 season.

Long term, the only thing I can think of that Daniels can do to improve his individual defense would be to tack on a few pounds to his frame so that he can wall off opposing player’s drives a bit more effectively (Fox took it right at his chest on a few occasions Monday night), but I’m very much nitpicking here.

Offensively, as we discussed above, Daniels has to improve his free throw percentage and catch-and-shoot three-point shooting ability. It’s also worth monitoring his rim-finishing ability and turnover percentage to see if these numbers regress to his averages from his New Orleans’ days, or whether he can sustain his impressive early-season marks from the start of the 2024-25 season.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again, I sure am glad Dyson Daniels is a Hawk, and I can’t wait to see what he has in store for the rest of the season.

All statistics and videos used in this article are from nba.com/stats, cleaningtheglass.com, dunksandthrees.com, basketball-reference.com or bball-index.com.

***Bear with me here. Included this for credibility purposes. To calculate how many points per possession the Hawks’ defense allows on possessions that do not end in a turnover (i.e. how many points per possession does each steal save their defense), I multiplied Atlanta’s defensive turnover percentage by their total number of possessions to calculate the total number of defensive possessions that end in a turnover. I then subtracted that number from the total number of possessions to find the total number of defensive possessions that do not end in a turnover, and divided the total amount of points the Hawks have allowed this season by this number (the number of defensive possessions that do not end in a turnover) which gives me points per possession on Hawks defensive possessions that do not end in a turnover.

Then, to calculate the difference between an offensive possession that begins with a steal vs. an offensive possession that does not begin with a steal, I used the Hawks’ offensive transition numbers from cleaningtheglass to find the percentage of steals that the Hawks turn into transition possessions, then multiplied that percentage by their PPP on transition possessions beginning with steal, and added the product of their PPP on halfcourt possessions multiplied by “1 minus the percentage of steals that the Hawks turn into transition possessions” to find how many points per possession the Hawks score on an offensive possession beginning with a steal.

I then multiplied this number by 154 (the total number of steals the Hawks have accumulated this season), and subtracted the product from the total number of points the Hawks have scored this season to calculate the total number of points scored the Hawks have scored on possessions that did not begin with a steal. I then divided this number by the total number of steals subtracted from the total number of possessions to calculate the points per possession scored on an offensive possession that does not begin with a steal.

I added the two numbers calculated in the paragraphs above to give me a sum which represents how many points per possession each Hawks’ steal is worth.