Dyson Daniels’ big steal: Inside how he became the NBA’s deflection king

NEW YORK – Josh Giddey he should have known better. Never turn your back on a friend.

That Chicago Bulls the keeper powered through midfield to open the second half of an early season match with hawkshis childhood friend Dyson Danielsstood straight in front of him. Giddey is used to it.

He calls Daniels his sparring partner, spending last summer in Melbourne sparring together until their shoes wore out. As the children grew up in Australia, this was how they filled their days, chasing each other until they were good enough to be NBA lottery picks.

Giddey has played against Daniels far more than anyone else in the NBA and understands that Daniels is too understanding even for his closest friends. The problem he has, like everyone else in the league, is that he doesn’t see it coming.

As Giddey waltzed to set up the play, Daniels quickly glanced over his left shoulder for a screen from one of Giddey’s teammates. There was no one there. A less studious defender might wonder what that means and look to his back for the answer.

But Daniels had done his homework. That absence of a screener in this particular Bulls action meant the cutter was going the other way. So he was looking for a subtle clue to explain what was going on behind him.

When Giddey went from looking forward to the ball, there he was. A spinning motion was coming. Daniels could see it in his eyes.

“Eyes is the biggest seller,” Daniels said The Athletic. “Some people are good at selling the eyes, but most people look where the ball is going. If you can read the eyes, you can read where the ball is going. Then it’s just about being close enough to get deflections.”

Daniels has seen Giddey do this move thousands of times. He recalled how Giddey retracts the left hand he uses to shield defenders, holding the ball in his hip pocket as he pirouettes the other way.

Then it was time for Daniels to pull off his ski mask and snatch his prize. Three seconds later, Daniels was putting the ball in as Giddey ran helplessly from behind. The Great Barrier Thief had struck again.

NBA Steals Leader Dyson Daniels Doing Dyson Daniels Things pic.twitter.com/ManXILT8WW

— Atlanta Hawks (@ATLHawks) November 10, 2024

“I don’t know how it works!” Giddey said laughing. “I told him, ‘Stop doing that.’ He said, “Don’t turn your back.”

When the Hawks acquired Daniels from New Orleans Pelicans as part of a package for Goodbye Murray during the summer, they knew he was already playing defense that way in a smaller role and thought he could eventually blossom into an All-Defensive player if given the opportunity.

It arrived well ahead of schedule.

“Dyson is a threat and I’m excited he’ll be able to show that more this year,” he said Larry Nance Jr.longtime teammate of Daniels who ended up in the same trade and coined the iconic moniker Great Barrier Thief. “The deep wing and guard situation in New Orleans, then he comes here and is put in a situation where he can develop and expand and make mistakes without another player breathing down your neck for a few minutes.”

That week, the rest of the league realized what Giddey already knew: Daniels, 21, is already one of the best defenders in the NBA. The Hawks guard has recorded at least six steals in four straight games, earning the first Eastern Conference Defensive Player of the Month award for October and November.

Victor Wembanyama — who won the same monthly award for the Western Conference — was the presumptive Defensive Player of the Year because of the way he disrupts an offense’s aerial space. But Daniels does something comparable at ground level.

Daniels has 184 strikeouts on the season since Dec. 26, 72 ahead De’Aaron Fox in second place despite playing 174 fewer minutes. There are 152 players in the same gap after Fox. In the nine seasons the NBA has tracked offense, no player has averaged more than 4.2 per game. Daniels is at 6.6.

He is on pace to become the first player since Allen Iverson in 2002-03 to pull down 225 steals. Since the age of pace and space began to take shape about a decade ago, no one has even sniffed 200.

He is beyond an outlier. He is the evolution of a lineage of robber barons dating back to a young man Chris Paul and, before him, players like Gary Payton and Alvin Robertson. While Daniels has a ways to go before he reaches their level, he is precocious in the dark arts of defensive manipulation that made them so special.

So how does he do it?

“Being able to time my jump and get my hands out, I bait them into those passes where I know where they’re going,” he said. “It’s just reading the game, reading the pass, reading the eyes.”

We meticulously dissect an offensive player’s handles and footwork to diagnose how they broke someone’s ankles. But generational defenders also play games, manipulating ball players as much as they try to stay in front of them.

Daniels’ weapons of choice are his hands, which he wields to cut through the blur of basketball to be in the right place at the right time. He spends his free time DJing, studying the likes of Tiesto and Fisher to create a rhythmic tempo, then breaks it up for dramatic effect. His hands work the same way on the basketball court.

But Daniels isn’t racking up fouls just because of his quick feet. That’s how he hides them in plain sight. Young players are traditionally taught to defend with their arms out to the side, forming a wall to intimidate a passer. You don’t see that much in the NBA (unless teams are in the zone), but most quarterbacks will still put one hand down in the pass pocket and one hand up.

Even that creates a map for the passer to send, though. That’s why Daniels keeps his hands as neutral and modest as possible for most of the possession, making it harder for the offensive player to recognize the danger of a particular pass or dribble.

“If they don’t see your hands, that’s where they’re going to pass it,” he said.

If Daniels knows a passer likes to throw passes over the top, he keeps his hands down to make them think the window is open before rushing in. His shining example came when he helped spark a near comeback in Detroit.

While watching budding Buckets star Cade Cunningham falls over a maze of screens, Daniels settled down easily as they entered the paint. He figured Cunningham would go back over his head on a roll, so he raised his hand at the last second and flicked the ball out of the air.

“I baited him into it a little bit,” Daniels said. “That was the favorite.”

This is just a trick that Daniels uses. Giddey noticed that every time a player turned his back on Daniels, the Hawks guard would push to his blind side to deflect the ball with striking accuracy. Daniels makes a conventional ball protector look useless.

“He’s got those things you can’t teach, and defense is a very hard thing to learn,” Giddey said. “Either you got it or you didn’t. He’s one of those guys who has it.”

One solution that star players actively try is to face Daniels and bait him into fouling early in the first quarter.

In particular, Daniels noted how the All-Star ball handlers for the Hawks’ two NBA Cup playoff opponents — Jalen Brunson and Damian Lillard — dip deep into their bag of decoy tricks in the first few minutes of the game.

“They’re trying to get some early fouls on me, so I can’t be as aggressive.” Daniels said.

Early in their quarterfinal match at Madison Square Garden, Brunson made Daniels realize it. Daniels was following Knicks guards screens, playing decisively from the back. That means he has to hit the throttle to get back on Brunson’s inside hip, taking the route straight to the basket. But a skilled guard like Brunson knows how to slide into that lane and then grab the brakes with control so Daniels crashes into him.

“I don’t want to be in that position of being behind Brunson,” Daniels said. “I want to be on his hip or I want to be in front of him.”

So see how he adapted to get out of that situation behind.

“He put me on that (first) thing, so I knew if I could get under more screens and get in front of him and challenge the 3, then I was going to be in good shape,” said Daniels. “But there were a few times where he came off a screen and turned the corner and I was chasing him, so I started going under more screens and late contest stuff. It’s hard to play with someone behind and Brunson is a smart guy. But I felt like I did a pretty good job the rest of the game.”

To do this, Daniels leaned on one of his other elite defensive skills. He has the ability to stay upright while guarding in front of the ball without losing his balance, then bend while pulling players back to impact the ball. Many of his deflections come through his hand off handoffs, somehow ending up in the cookie jar without getting caught.

Those little breaks keep his man out of rhythm, which allows him to recover and shut down guys like Lillard in ways few defenders can.

“Versatility is selling short, to be honest with you. He’s not only versatile, but he has a versatile mind and that allows him to impact the game in a lot of ways,” Hawks coach Quin Snyder said. “He’s physically capable, but he’s also able to see the plays and anticipate putting himself in the right position.”

The elasticity that makes Daniels nearly impossible to shake out of an action has allowed the Hawks to run more pick-and-roll coverages than in years past. His ballhawking has revived Clint Chapelhis ability to effectively hold the ball in drop coverage. He is covered Trae Younghis size deficiencies when the latter executes a tough show before retreating back to his man. The lineup of Young, Daniels, DeAndre Hunter, Jalen Johnson and the Chapel ranks fifth in the NBA the turnover percentage forced to 20.1 percent as of Dec. 26, according to Cleaning the Glass.

The Hawks dealt Murray — their second star — hoping they got enough assets in return to make the risk worth it. They ended up getting the backcourt partner they always hoped to pair with Young, their franchise player.

“I think the trade for him was a massive blessing in disguise. Well, not even in disguise,” Giddey said. “He’s just had the opportunity to blossom and show his true colors. He is one of the best defenders in the world. He’s always had that defensive ability and I’m glad it’s on full display for everyone.”

Could that Defensive Player of the Month honor — a “made up award,” in Daniels’ mind — be a precursor to a bigger one to come?

“Maybe I’m biased because we’re so close, but in my opinion, he’s the runner-up for Defensive Player of the Year. No one has done what he does. Maybe Michael Jordan did,” Giddey said. “But from a deflection standpoint, a steal standpoint, he has to guard the best player every night. People will say it’s Wemby and rightly so. He was an incredible defender. But I think what Dys is doing hasn’t really been seen before.”

(Top photo: Todd Kirkland/Getty Images)