Dyson Daniels cannot shoot the three pointer, and teams have begun to plan their defensive approach to the Atlanta Hawks by exploiting this weakness. In their last two matchups against the New Orleans Pelicans and Charlotte Hornets, teams have opened the game with a center matched up on Daniels.
When a defense puts a center on a non-shooting wing, the offense must respond by proving the decision is a mistake. Allowing a center to roam as a free safety in help defense gives defenses an advantage that is nearly impossible to overcome.
There are two ways to expose this strategy: nailing threes and slashing hard. If Daniels can start to knock down the open opportunities generated by granting him excessive space, then teams will be forced to guard him straight up. But this seems unlikely; Daniels had the highest proportion of open threes in the league last year and sank just 34.0% of them, which is both a career high and unsatisfactory for halfcourt offense. He has a long way to go as a shooter.
Daniels can improve as a shooter with time, and Atlanta has had a few remarkable success stories with developing non-shooters into shooters in recent memory (Jalen Johnson, Onyeka Okongwu, Vit Krejci). In the short term, however, we have to assume Daniels isn’t a threat on the three point line until he proves otherwise.
Barring miraculous in-season shooting growth, how does Daniels recover?
Despite being a negative shooter over the entirety of his career, Daniels has been a positive on offense over the past two seasons. He is one of the strongest players in the league, and he loves getting physical on drives in a more aesthetically pleasing rendition of Dillon Brooks’s offensive game. While Daniels doesn’t have the vertical or horizontal burst to generate open looks for himself consistently, he can force help and move the ball to the open man.
When teams give him space by excessively helping, Daniels likes to attack off the catch. He usually takes a couple dribbles to the midrange area, where his forward momentum and physicality as a driver can knock the approaching defender out of position. This gives him space from his assignment to continue to penetrate, but there is usually a help defender ready to wall off the paint. Daniels then kicks the ball and relocates. He has a probing nature when driving, and perhaps a more violent attack on the paint would yield better results (assuming he can remain a positive playmaker, which is not a guarantee).
This has worked so far, but it is worth noting that the defensive strategy of starting a center on Daniels has only been employed in the preseason and by clearly inferior teams. The most likely reason serious teams have not attempted this strategy is that they can compete with Atlanta without resorting to gimmicks.
When Trae Young returns, however, the Hawks will be a team coaches put more thought into game planning against. When teams take this Atlanta roster seriously, Daniels is the sole weak link teams can attack, and he will be attacked. The question is: Can his drive-and-kick still generate advantages against better competition?