Mendoza Line<\/a>. The previous low was Tony Wroten\u2019s 21.3 percent for the Process Philadelphia 76ers in 2013-14.<\/p>\nThis all came as a bit of a surprise. While Daniels has never been confused with prime Steph Curry, a year earlier, he shot 34.0 percent from 3 on a not-inconsequential 3.1 attempts per game. There was no real reason to expect him to suddenly become the worst-shooting guard in the league at age 22.<\/p>\n
But he did. And as he slumped, opponents\u2019 strategies evolved. They started giving Daniels acres of space when he caught the ball at the 3-point line, all but daring him to shoot. They started putting their center on Daniels and a forward on the Hawks\u2019 6-foot-8 center Onyeka Okongwu. And in response, the Hawks were essentially forced to invert their entire offense.<\/p>\n
You might think this would have been a tragic turn of events that sidelined Daniels\u2019 promising career, especially in our current era, where floor spacing is paramount.<\/p>\n
Nothing could be further from the truth. Faced with professional extinction because his 3-pointer abandoned him, Daniels instead has totally reinvented his game in less than one season. He is now effectively the center on offense, and Okongwu is a forward, with Okongwu usually spacing to the corner or elbow to allow a pick-and-roll involving Daniels and a ballhandler space to cook.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, I haven\u2019t shot the ball how I wanted, so that\u2019s why I\u2019m getting guarded that way,\u201d Daniels said recently. \u201cBut I have to find other ways to be effective.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s like I\u2019m the five now. Especially when the five is on me, I play the same role that the five does in a lot of the screening actions, up top and in handoffs and stuff like that.\u201d<\/p>\n
The impact numbers would tell you he\u2019s the same guy. Daniels\u2019 across-the-board stats (aside from 3-point percentage) are nearly identical to his Most Improved Player-winning numbers from 2024-25; a 15.5 PER this season compared to 15.6, a 54.2 percent true shooting compared to 54.5 and a 1.3 BPM compared to 1.5.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s new for Daniels, who mostly played point guard in his youth, but it also puts his speed on display against much slower bigs when he catches on the move.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like it, it\u2019s fun,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve rolled in all the actions.\u201d<\/p>\n
And yes, when he catches the ball wide open at the 3-point line, and there isn\u2019t a screening opportunity nearby, there are some times when he just lets it fly anyway.<\/p>\n
Here\u2019s a scene from Game 3 against the Knicks where Daniels is spaced to the corner, and his defender, OG Anunoby, sells out to stop Jalen Johnson before showing only the mildest of concern that Daniels is shooting a 3 from the corner. (Alas, he should have been a bit more concerned about Okongwu trucking down the lane for a tip dunk.)<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re curious, the Hawks are OK with Daniels letting it fly, something that coach Quin Snyder confirmed when I asked him about it directly in March. They want Daniels to take the shot when he\u2019s open and shoot it with confidence.<\/p>\n
But Daniels has also noticed that the sagging bigs who are \u201cguarding\u201d him at the 3-point line are in no position to help on a screen, so he\u2019s realized the value of quick-hitting handoffs to better shooters if he can find one nearby.<\/p>\n
\u201cThat\u2019s just how I found the way to be effective, with a cross-match especially,\u201d Daniels said. \u201cA lot of teams, with their [five] guarding me far off \u2026 I see cracks, and then, I get my teammates open.\u201d<\/p>\n
Golden State Warriors fans might recognize this particular piece of artistry. It\u2019s something Draymond Green has done a thousand times over with Curry, especially when opponents dare Green to shoot.<\/p>\n
Slowly but surely, it\u2019s becoming part of Daniels\u2019 arsenal as well \u2014 especially since the Hawks imported two movement shooters in McCollum and Alexander-Walker over the past year.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have watched Draymond a lot, enough to see how he does it,\u201d Daniels said. \u201cI should probably watch him more to see how he uses all the little tricks.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for Okongwu, his reinvention has arguably been just as important. This is a player who had not made a single 3-pointer in his first two pro seasons; in his sixth season, however, he tried more 3s than in the first five years combined, a whopping 5.2 per game.<\/p>\n
To give you some idea of how often he launched, Okongwu took more 3s this regular season than Devin Booker, Quentin Grimes, Cade Cunningham or Victor Wembanyama. Only three centers (Naz Reid, Bam Adebayo and Myles Turner) let it rip from beyond the arc more often.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s been an essential part of the Hawks\u2019 adjustment. Playing next to a more traditional, rim-running center (such as former starter Clint Capela) would have left Daniels in a much more tenuous situation.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe way he shoots it, they really have to respect him, and he opens up the floor for other guys. So I think it\u2019s really better for the guys like myself, especially like [with] CJ and Jalen, so I can get downhill, or I can keep playing in the dunker and get easy dropoffs and lobs and offensive rebounds.\u201d<\/p>\n
But about those 3-pointers\u2026<\/p>\n
Hawks people will tell you that Daniels\u2019 shot looks good on the practice court, and if you watched him in pregame warm-ups, you\u2019d never guess he\u2019s shooting in the teens. Alas, his confidence hasn\u2019t carried over into games, a trend exacerbated for a big chunk of the season by his often only taking one a night.<\/p>\n
In the middle of the season, especially, a typical game pattern would see him let one rip in the first half, then stop taking them the rest of the game if it missed. He has 22 separate games this season where he finished 0-for-1 from 3; after an 0-for-5 outing against the San Antonio Spurs on Dec. 19, Daniels was either 0-of-0 or 0-of-1 in 13 of the next 15 games.<\/p>\n
Encouragingly, he\u2019s been a bit more willing to launch in the second half of the season, including 31 attempts in his last 14 games (regular season and playoffs). He\u2019s also been a bit more accurate of late, with a lukewarm stretch of 10-of-24 shooting in the final dozen games of the regular season, allowing him to finish the season with more makes than airballs. (Baby steps.)<\/p>\n
There\u2019s a comfort in Daniels shooting them more, actually; one person close to the Hawks insisted to me that he\u2019d look more or less fine if he took five a game and didn\u2019t have to worry so much about whether the first one went in. A season earlier, he took at least five in a game on 18 occasions. This year, it\u2019s happened just once since Christmas.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously, I\u2019m not happy with how I\u2019ve shot it this year, and it\u2019s something for the offseason,\u201d Daniels said. \u201cBut like I said, this game is a lot more than just shooting. [It\u2019s] the defensive end. It\u2019s about being a cutter. It\u2019s about screening. It\u2019s about rebounding, so I just found other ways to help us win games.\u201d<\/p>\n
Make no mistake: The Hawks will continue his tutelage this summer, with the help of an all-time marksman in assistant general manager Kyle Korver. Getting Daniels back to being at least a 1-in-3 proposition from the perimeter is a significant objective for a franchise that committed $100 million to him over the next four seasons. And at just 23, Daniels has a lot of developmental runway in front of him.<\/p>\n
In the meantime, Daniels has found enough other ways to impact the game. \u201cThe Great Barrier Thief\u201d has 10 steals in four games against New York and has been the primary defender as the Hawks have harassed Knicks star Jalen Brunson into 41.6 percent shooting through Game 4.<\/p>\n
It may not be ideal, but the guard from Down Under has found a way to turn his game upside down. And in doing so, he\u2019s become one of the most interesting and rarest players in the league.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ATLANTA \u2014 There\u2019s a scene in Game 1 of the Atlanta Hawks-New York Knicks series that illustrates a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":634344,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[7218,64,63,590,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-634343","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-atlanta-hawks","9":"tag-au","10":"tag-australia","11":"tag-nba","12":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634343","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=634343"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/634343\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/634344"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=634343"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=634343"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=634343"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}