{"id":530348,"date":"2026-03-10T05:19:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T05:19:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/530348\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T05:19:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T05:19:07","slug":"dysons-underrated-skill-sparking-hawks-run","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/530348\/","title":{"rendered":"Dyson’s ‘underrated’ skill sparking Hawks run"},"content":{"rendered":"

Senior NBA writer Sam Vecenie believes Dyson Daniels’ $100m has become great value for the Hawks<\/p>\n

His defence may have gotten off to a slow start and shooting numbers might be drastically down from last season but still Dyson Daniels<\/a>‘ $100m extension<\/a> looks like a bargain for the rising Atlanta Hawks<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The new-look Hawks are the hottest team in the NBA, winning six games in a row, spearheaded by the young core of Daniels and All-Star Jalen Johnson as well as big man Onyeka Okongwu but rejuvenated by trade deadline additions including CJ McCollum and Corey Kispert from the Washington Wizards<\/a> and former Golden State Warrior<\/a> Johnathan Kuminga.<\/p>\n

Atlanta have climbed up to ninth in the Eastern Conference and sit just 2.5 games behind the all-important sixth-placed Orlando Magic and senior NBA\u00a0writer at The Athletic and the co-host of The Game Theory Podcast, Sam Vecenie, said Daniels has worked his way into having an impressive season.<\/p>\n

“Dyson’s been really interesting this year to be honest,” Vecenie said on a recent episode of the Cut to the Jase podcast with NBL\u00a0legend Jason Cadee<\/a>. <\/p>\n

“The three-point shot has like completely and utterly abandoned him in every way, shape and form. But I think that he’s really worked his way into the year and kind of worked his way around working around the jumper that he, I think probably has just lost confidence in at this point. <\/p>\n

“I think he’s actually been really really good for them basically since that deal and since that move.<\/p>\n

“It’s funny like I think he’s gotten a little bit better as he’s gotten more like on-ball opportunity this year… there are so many examples I can think of in college basketball particularly this year, where guys have had to like step up into bigger offensive roles and their defensive game has tanked. <\/p>\n

“I kind of think that in Dyson’s case, it’s been like a little bit more the opposite, where I I think he’s just gotten better on both ends throughout the course of the year. <\/p>\n

“I’m totally speculating, I’m not I just want to make that clear I’m not breaking news or anything like that… maybe he was dealing with something that was like behind the scenes injury-wise early in the year, maybe there was something going on personally. <\/p>\n

“Maybe the shooting kind of got in his head a little bit to start the year and he kind of got down a little bit and as the Trae Young trades happens, he gets a chance then to move more on the ball and gets a chance to play. <\/p>\n

“He’s been outstanding uh over the course of the last like 25 or so games at the very least.”<\/p>\n

Daniels’ three-point shooting percentage has plummeted from 34% last season to just 13.5% this season, connecting on only 12 shots from beyond the arc on 89 attempts in 61 games.<\/p>\n

But the Australian Boomers<\/a> backcourt star has impressed with his playmaking ability, especially since the departure of Trae Young to the Wizards in the deal for McCollum and Kispert.<\/p>\n

His assists numbers have climbed from 4.4 last season to 6.1 per game and his rebounding numbers are also up from 5.9 to 6.6 per game.<\/p>\n

Vecenie said he believed Daniels’ playmaking ability was “underrated”.<\/p>\n

“You can see it, the assist numbers go up, like in those last five games (he’d had) eight assists, seven assists, 11 assists, seven assists, right? He is still not a massive scorer of the basketball, but I’ve always thought that his pick and roll ability is a little bit underrated. <\/p>\n

“I’ve always felt like he can see all of the reads and make all the decisions that he has to. <\/p>\n

“Defensively, he’s outstanding. I actually didn’t love his defensive game to start the year and he’s worked his way into it to the point where… I really thought about him for All-Defence again. I probably wouldn’t have him there right now, but if by the end of the year he ends up there, it wouldn’t blow my mind at all, I think he has a real shot.<\/p>\n

“So I love the way he’s defended, I love the way he’s been able to work his way into the season offensively.<\/p>\n

“He’s a guy that when he signed that deal I thought ‘oh that’s a steal for Atlanta’ and then he played for the first 40 games of the year and I was like ‘oh maybe this is bad for Atlanta’ and then the last 25 or so games, I think he’s been really good, so I think it’s looking like a deal that’s going to age well for them at the end of the day.”<\/p>\n

Vecenie also said the Hawks have a strong chance of making it to sixth spot as their schedule “eases up”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Senior NBA writer Sam Vecenie believes Dyson Daniels’ $100m has become great value for the Hawks His defence…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":530349,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[574],"tags":[64,63,726,85],"class_list":["post-530348","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-basketball","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-basketball","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530348","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=530348"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/530348\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/530349"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=530348"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=530348"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=530348"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}