Just before the season, there\u2019s always something that seems to ragebait NBA fans, and it\u2019s ESPN\u2019s annual Top 100 list. Over the years, there have been some questionable decisions made on the list that people (including players) have had to say something about when they don\u2019t see their names. There will always be some argument when it comes to any list, and some are valid. Others might need a little more convincing.<\/p>\n
The Atlanta Hawks had four players to make the list this upcoming season, as Lu Dort came in at 100, CJ McCollum at 87, Nickeil Alexander-Walker at 41 and Jalen Johnson at 22. People can debate on if those players are ranked correctly, but that\u2019s not the biggest problem here.<\/p>\n
The problem is that the players who actually should\u2019ve made the list didn\u2019t. Those players would be Dyson Daniels and Onyeka Okongwu.<\/p>\n
Okongwu has seemed to be one of the more underrated players at his position, which is interesting due to all of things he can do on the court. He had a career-year last season, averaging 15.2 points per game and shooting 37.6 percent from the 3-point line. Among centers, he had one of the best 3-point percentages, and he took over five a game.<\/p>\n
Defensively, Okongwu once again showed the ability to guard multiple positions if need be, which helped elevate the Hawks\u2019 defense. The argument that he\u2019s too small to play center continues to come up anytime he faces an actual 7-footer, but nobody talks about how the Hawks are a better rebounding team when he\u2019s on the floor.<\/p>\n
ESPN might not take this into account either, but Okongwu was the one constant in the Hawks\u2019 rotation last season. Through all the injuries and trades that they had at the center position, he remained consistent, and that led him to play the most minutes of his career at 31.0. Okongwu should\u2019ve been somewhere on the Top 1o0, and it may be safe to say he got snubbed.<\/p>\n
If not seeing Okongwu on the list was disappointing, then not seeing Dyson Daniels may have caused an uproar for some.<\/p>\n
There were a lot of interesting takes about Daniels\u2019 last season, and it always started with his 3-point shooting. 18% is not good for a guard, and it\u2019s obvious that part of his game was a lowlight of the season, especially after he shot 34 percent the previous season. The good news for the Hawks is that everyone else around him could shoot, and he basically served as the team\u2019s center.<\/p>\n
Despite the 3-point shooting, Daniels was basically efficient in everything else he did on the court. Similar to how Okongwu had a career year, the same could be said for Daniels after he averaged a career-high in rebounds and assists. He techincally served as the point guard for the Hawks, and he played that role well, getting other involved while not turning the ball over at a high rate.<\/p>\n
Daniels was still one of the best defenders in the league, and though he didn\u2019t break any crazy records last season, he still averaged 2.0 steals per game, which was tied for the best in the league.<\/p>\n
Of course, people are going to look at the 3-point shooting and stop the conversation there, but he was more valuable to the Hawks last season than people think.<\/p>\n
There\u2019s no telling what more Okongwu and Daniels would\u2019ve had to do to make the Top 100 list, but fans will be excited to see if they take their games to another level once again this season.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Just before the season, there\u2019s always something that seems to ragebait NBA fans, and it\u2019s ESPN\u2019s annual Top…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":911518,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[434],"tags":[49,48,3673,459,82],"class_list":["post-911517","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-general","tag-nba","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/911517","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=911517"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/911517\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/911518"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=911517"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=911517"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=911517"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}