Hawks’ Dyson Daniels letting his play take care of talk about best defensive player

“Like, I hear sometime from the bench that, like the coaches say, ‘Don’t give him any steals‘ and stuff like that,” Daniels told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on Sunday. “So, I know people are wary of it, but I haven’t seen (player) reactions.”

Daniels, who turns 22 on March 17, has been a steady force all season, leading the league in total deflections and deflection per game, as well as total steals and steals per game.

Despite that, Daniels doesn’t lead the odds for the NBA’s Defensive Player of the Year award. As of March 2, Cavaliers center Evan Mobley leads the way, according to VegasInsider, with Grizzlies forward Jaren Jackson following closely behind.

Daniels has the third best odds.

“It’s cool just to be mentioned, to have my name be mentioned in that category,” Daniels said Feb. 24. “And, yeah, coming into the season, my goal was to be first team All-Defense. And now the goal is Defensive Player of the Year. And I think... you can go for MVP, you can go put up shots. But for defense, you’re not a detriment to the team playing defense. That’s going to help the team. So there’s no real stat padding on the defensive end.

“It’s going out there and just making plays. And for me, yeah, it’s a possibility, but I’m not too zoned in. And I just want to, win games. And the playoffs is what we’re trying to get to. So we need to win some more games.”

The award has sort of become a bit of a “big-man award,” with a forward or center taking home the prize in 27 of the last 29 seasons.

In some ways, it may be a little tougher to objectively quantify what players do defensively on the perimeter. But blocks, rebounds and defensive field-goal percentages could make it easier to show the quality of rim protection or the impact of a player closer to the basket.

But Daniels has a lot of pride in the havoc he’s wreaked on the perimeter this season.

“I think I’ve had a pretty good defensive season, especially the steals and deflections and stuff like that,” Daniels said. “And I can’t change people’s votes or anything. I just go out there and keep doing what I do, and the talking and the defensive conversation will take care of itself. But, like you said, Jaren Jackson and Evan Mobley, I think, are the two guys that are up there as well. Obviously, really good rim protectors, big men as well.

“And like you said, I feel like it’s started to form into more of a big man award because, you look at guys like I like to say, Lu Dort. People don’t score on him. He gets stops. He doesn’t get the stats, steals and deflections, but he locks down. I mean, I think a guy like him should get a lot more credit in what he does. But like, I said, I just go out there, play defense, get steals, cause turnovers and the talk will sort itself out. Another thing is team defense goes into it a lot, and we need to be better as a team more on that and it starts with me at the point of attack.”

As a team, the Hawks have improved defensively, thanks to the acquisition of Daniels in June. The Hawks finished the prior season 27th in defense and now rank 18th.

But the Hawks can count on Daniels to always be in the mix and he’s ready to keep wreaking havoc, maybe with a little trash talk included.

“It depends who it is,” Daniels said. “Some people will trash talk a little bit. Some people are quiet. But, I’m not usually the one to start and talk, but I’ll talk back a little bit. I know (Jalen) Brunson, me and him be going at a little bit, talking a little bit, but he’s a cool dude at the end of the day. So I haven’t really gotten into it with anyone yet, but I would love to. So if someone want to talk trash that I’m always down for it.”