{"id":409598,"date":"2026-01-13T05:46:20","date_gmt":"2026-01-13T05:46:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/409598\/"},"modified":"2026-01-13T05:46:20","modified_gmt":"2026-01-13T05:46:20","slug":"dyson-daniels-three-point-shooting-slump-leads-to-ugly-statistic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/409598\/","title":{"rendered":"Dyson Daniels three-point shooting slump leads to ugly statistic"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Australian <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nine.com.au\/sport\/basketball\/national-basketball-association\" class=\"sc-bczRLG cEmsbU\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">NBA<\/a> star Dyson Daniels has had a rough season from an offensive standpoint, coming off what was his breakout year in the league.<\/p>\n<p>The 22-year-old won the league&#8217;s most improved player award last season and finished as a defensive player of the year finalist, thanks to his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nine.com.au\/sport\/basketball\/national-basketball-association\/nba-defensive-player-of-the-year-2025-australian-dyson-daniels-case-exclusive-brett-usher-zach-lowe-most-improved-20250402-p5lotc.html\" class=\"sc-bczRLG cEmsbU\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">emergence as one of the best perimeter defenders in the NBA<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>He has entrenched himself as a starter for the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nine.com.au\/topic\/atlanta-hawks-2596\" class=\"sc-bczRLG cEmsbU\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Atlanta Hawks<\/a>, who have since reshaped their roster around him as one of the centrepieces.  <\/p>\n<p>READ MORE: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nine.com.au\/sport\/tennis\/australian-open-news-2026-casper-ruud-wife-pregnancy-norway-may-not-play-20260113-p5ntn3.html\" class=\"sc-bczRLG cEmsbU\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">World No.12 may quit Australian Open at any minute<\/a><\/p>\n<p>READ MORE: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nine.com.au\/sport\/olympics\/milano-cortina-2026-skeleton-race-investigated-canada-withdrawal-katie-uhlaender-sabotage-claims-qualification-20260113-p5ntk8.html\" class=\"sc-bczRLG cEmsbU\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Scandal erupts over Olympic team&#8217;s &#8216;horrible&#8217; act<\/a><\/p>\n<p>READ MORE: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nine.com.au\/sport\/tennis\/australian-open-2026-bernard-tomic-qualifying-hugo-dellien-result-video-first-round-20260112-p5nti1.html\" class=\"sc-bczRLG cEmsbU\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Tomic reveals &#8216;really tough&#8217; reason for sad downfall<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Daniels led the NBA in steals by a wide margin and made first team All-Defence for his efforts.<\/p>\n<p>But the 2025-26 season hasn&#8217;t quite gone to plan just yet, with his struggles on offence holding him back.<\/p>\n<p>Daniels is shooting just 11.3 per cent from three point range this season, a shocking number given he was at a career-high 34 per cent last season. Ideally, he would want to be improving on that and getting closer to 40 per cent, like Josh Giddey has.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Dyson Daniels of the Atlanta Hawks.\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/fc6f22213968ebfd2427d0cd286df353f45585b6.jpeg\"  width=\"100%\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"_0b53bae146db0b62 _7475dd3391ee1518\" style=\"--text-color:var(--color-text-secondary)\">Dyson Daniels of the Atlanta Hawks.\u00a0Getty<\/p>\n<p>His inability to hit shots makes him hard to hide on offence, given defenders will effectively ignore him unless he&#8217;s under the ring.<\/p>\n<p>The Bendigo native&#8217;s struggles are so great, he has not hit a single three in a game since December 15 &#8211; which was 13 games ago. He has taken at least one three-point shot in every game bar two in that stretch.<\/p>\n<p>He has made just two since the start of December.<\/p>\n<p>Because of this slump, his points per game overall is down from 14.1 last season to 11.9. He&#8217;s still having some impact closer to the hoop, but his inability to hit threes will hold him back from going to the next level.<\/p>\n<p>And it will certainly become a problem in the playoffs, with every flaw amplified and exposed by rivals paying close attention.<\/p>\n<p>Daniels not being able to hit a three reliably would also be a headache for the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nine.com.au\/topic\/australian-boomers-1mo9\" class=\"sc-bczRLG cEmsbU\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Boomers<\/a> come the World Cup next year, particularly alongside teammate Giddey who is somewhat hit-and-miss himself.<\/p>\n<p>A starting NBA player simply should not be in a situation where their points per game average is higher than their three-point percentage, unless they are an old school 221cm centre. <\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Dyson Daniels\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/1f79eb0139d6a3c123fe27cfd24522c356f491d3.jpeg\"  width=\"100%\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"_0b53bae146db0b62 _7475dd3391ee1518\" style=\"--text-color:var(--color-text-secondary)\">Dyson Daniels in 2025.\u00a0NBAE via Getty Images<\/p>\n<p>Atlanta made the biggest NBA decision of the season so far in January, trading star guard and face of the franchise Trae Young to Washington, for a mediocre return.<\/p>\n<p>They did this to free up cap space, and put the team in the hands of rising star Jalen Johnson.<\/p>\n<p>The Hawks have been a strong defensive team in Young&#8217;s absence this season, in part because of Daniels.<\/p>\n<p>But with the added faith being shown in him in the wake of that trade, he needs to find some form from three-point range.<\/p>\n<p>Daniels signed a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nine.com.au\/sport\/basketball\/nba-news-2025-atlanta-hawks-australian-dyson-daniels-signs-rookie-contract-extension-future-20251021-p5n3yp.html\" class=\"sc-bczRLG cEmsbU\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">four-year $149m extension with Atlanta before the season<\/a>, capitalising on his breakout season.<\/p>\n<p>The Hawks currently sit ninth in the Eastern Conference with a 20-21 record, but are right in the mix alongside the likes of Miami, Cleveland, Orlando and Philadelphia for a playoff spot.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Australian NBA star Dyson Daniels has had a rough season from an offensive standpoint, coming off what was&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":409599,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-409598","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409598","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=409598"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409598\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/409599"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=409598"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=409598"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=409598"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}