The Atlanta Hawks play regular season basketball today! While this is great news for fans who have craved the return of the NBA, the team now must prove that its celebrated offseason has built a true contender.
One of the issues that has plagued the Hawks throughout the Trae Young era is their weakness at the backup point guard position. The team didn’t entirely address this question this offseason, instead opting for a point guard-by-committee approach among ball handlers Dyson Daniels, Luke Kennard, Nickeil Alexander-Walker, and Vit Krejci.
Nathan Grubel of No Ceilings identified Daniels’ fit in this role as the key question Atlanta must address this season. While this is certainly an important question, the more critical question comes when we broaden the scope to “Can Daniels prove he is a positive offensive player?”
The Hawks just gave Daniels an extension to the tune of 4 years, $100 million. While this was widely applauded as a good contract for the team, this appraisal anticipates that Daniels will continue to develop into an offensive threat. If he stagnates at his current production, however, it suddenly becomes much more challenging to play Daniels in the biggest of moments.
How can Daniels address this question
Daniels has two general areas he can realistically improve in this season: playmaking and shooting. Currently, he has shown enough in both of these categories to be optimistic in his offensive ability with development, but not enough to be sold on his overall offensive value.
As a playmaker, Daniels has impressed, yet has left room for improvement. He was the primary ball handler for his G League Ignite team before being drafted. He was a poor shooter at this point in his career, so his slashing and playmaking were the offensive foundation behind the eighth pick in the 2022 draft.
Daniels has not had an extended opportunity to prove that this skill will hold up in the big leagues, however. He has excelled in a limited playmaking role, but acting as the primary offensive initiator is a different challenge entirely. When given the opportunity this year, can Daniels be the quarterback of the offense?
As a shooter, Daniels again offers reason for optimism but lacks proven production. He shot 34.0% from deep last season, which included a 39.7% heater after February 1st. His previous splits, however, were shaky at best: 31.2%. This is particularly concerning, given that most of these attempts were wide open.
The question here is simple: Can he improve from last year’s 34.0%? If he can, he doesn’t need to develop as a playmaker or slasher to be a positive on offense. If he cannot, he will have to overcompensate in other areas, and Quin Snyder will have to be creative in his offensive scheme.
Daniels won’t suddenly be a bad player if he doesn’t improve in these areas. His defensive impact as a disruptor last season was unprecedented in the modern NBA, and he isn’t necessarily bad on the other end of the floor. But his lack of spacing is a fatal flaw that will hurt the team around him. The only way to mitigate the downstream effects of his shooting is to be a threat on the ball. A failure to improve in these areas would make the Hawks’ path to title contention much less clear.