In his first season with the Atlanta Hawks Dyson Daniels averaged career highs of 14.1 points, 5.9 rebounds, 4.4 assists and 3.01 steals while shooting career highs of 49.3% from the field and 34.0% from three-point range in 33.8 minutes in 76 games. He became the fifth player to average at least 14.0 points, 5.0 rebounds, 4.0 assists and 3.0 steals in a season, joining Michael Ray Richardson (1979-80), Magic Johnson (1980-81), Alvin Robertson (three times – 1985-86, 1986-87 and 1988-89) and Michael Jordan (1987-88).
Daniels improved his scoring by +8.3 ppg, rebounds by +2.0 rpg, assists by +1.7 apg and steals by +1.62 spg from last season. He is the third player to have improvements of at least +8.0 ppg, +2.0 rpg, +1.5 apg and +1.5 spg from one season to the next (minimum 50 games played each season), joining Richardson (1978-79 to 1979-80) and Eric Murdock (1991-92 to 1992-93).
The Hawks’ guard joined The Morning Shift earlier today, and talked about what clicked for in Atlanta this season that led to him having his best season and winning this year’s Most Improved Player award.
“Opportunity is a big one and coming here and getting that starting role and playing a lot more minutes was really good for me, but it was my confidence I think was the main thing you know being confident in myself you know coming in believing in myself, believing in my abilities, and I think my first two years wasn’t really a reflection of you know how I could play and what kind of player I was and you know getting traded to Atlanta was kind of the best thing that happened to me.”
“I was able to get a fresh start and just come in and be myself and you know Coach Q [Quin Snyder], my teammates, the whole coaching staff, front office really believed in me from the get go and that made me confident in myself and just come out and play my game and be free.” Dyson said
During the interview Daniels also said he wants to add more “wiggle” to his offensive game this offseason and believes he “can win this award again”, and if Dyson continues to improve the way he did this past season the former eighth overall pick definitely has the ceiling and the skillset to be even better than he was this past season.