Give Hawks’ Landry Fields his due: Dyson Daniels trade was brilliant

Fields has received his share of criticism for his stewardship of the franchise since ascending to the GM spot in June 2022. That is not to say it’s been unmerited. While making a late-season push, the Hawks remain a Play-In Tournament fixture at least in part because of Fields’ ill-fated trade to acquire Murray shortly after his promotion.

But he does deserve credit — and a lot of it — for how well the Murray trade (completed last June) has worked out, to say nothing of his selection of Zaccharie Risacher with the first overall pick. A backup with the Pelicans, Daniels has been a full-time starter with the Hawks, a strong candidate for Defensive Player of the Year, a much better offensive player than he was in New Orleans and someone who will probably also receive votes for Most Improved Player.

Beyond that, the Hawks received two first-round picks and veteran forward-center Larry Nance Jr. All for a player — Murray — whom the Hawks did not want after their attempt to pair him with Trae Young did not work out.

For the Hawks, the trade went “about as good as they could have hoped,” an NBA scout wrote in a text to the AJC. “While Murray is the more talented player, Daniels’ defense is a huge upgrade for them and his willingness to be off ball fits better with Young.”

It was exactly what a fan would want from a GM in a trade — recognizing value or potential in players that other teams do not.

Said Fields, who reviewed the trade for The AJC, “I think our scouting group crushed it on this one.”

Daniels was a player the Hawks had liked going back to his entrance in the 2022 draft. They liked the Australian’s size, that he had point-guard skills, a variety of tools and the fact that, then 19, he was one of the younger players in the draft.

“So there was a lot of really good indicators there that would suggest he was going to have a real chance to be a good player in the NBA,” Fields said.

But, picking 16th, they anticipated that he would be gone, and they were right. New Orleans took him at No. 8. The Hawks used their pick on A.J. Griffin, whose Hawks career was limited by his personal issues. The team traded him during the 2024 draft for a second-round pick.

In his first two NBA seasons, even as Daniels played a backup role as a defense-first guard who didn’t contribute much offensively, Fields and team scouts continued to like him. They knew about his character and deemed him a locker-room fit. They also recognized that he could make the Hawks a better defensive team, which they needed to be.

But scouts also believed, though he had a limited offensive role with the Pelicans, that Daniels could be better with the ball in his hands than what he had shown.

“We see the indicators and areas that he could grow,” Fields said. “We’re looking at what his floor is, and we really liked that. And that takes a lot of work in combing through a number of different games and situations and not just watching highlights.”

At the time of the trade, Daniels wasn’t even seen as a key piece. When news of the trade broke, reports of the Hawks’ haul centered on the two first-round picks and Nance.

Fields began to feel good about it working out in the Hawks’ favor even before the season began. In four games with the Australian Olympic team in Paris, Daniels showed more offensive capacity. “So it’s giving you a little more hope that, when he comes into training camp, you may see some things that are different that you didn’t see before,” Fields said.

When he arrived in training camp, the Hawks got a fuller sense of his development as a defensive playmaker. With his effort, skill and basketball sense, he made plays on the ball but didn’t take risky gambles that compromised the defense and also set up teammates to make their own plays.

“To impact the game at that level, you typically see it on offense,” Fields said. “To see it defensively, that’s unique. And that’s what makes Dyson great.”

The NBA has since learned what the Hawks saw then. With quick feet, quicker hands, a long reach and his smarts, Daniels leads the league in steals (3.0) and deflections (5.9) per game, which does not fully explain his excellence as a disrupter.

Consider his 191 steals for the season, which as of Monday afternoon led the NBA with Oklahoma City’s Shai Gilgeous-Alexander in second with 117. If Gilgeous-Alexander, also the NBA’s leader in points scored, was ahead of the player with the second most points (Minnesota’s Anthony Edwards) by the same proportion, he would be averaging 44.8 points per game instead of 33.

Beyond that, where he averaged 4.8 points and shot 31.2% from 3-point range with the Pelicans, Daniels is averaging 13.9 points and shooting 34.4% beyond the arc with the Hawks. It’s a credit to scouts for projecting the growth and for Daniels and coaches for making it happen.

Daniels' impact renders almost irrelevant what Murray has done with the Pelicans, as his greatest value to the Hawks was as a trade chip. But he played 31 games before rupturing his Achilles tendon in a season-ending injury.

Now 22 years old — his birthday was Monday — Daniels is under contract through next season.

Said Fields, “It’s always really exciting to watch a player kind of blossom in front of you, especially when he’s on your team.”

By his own admission, Fields still has plenty of work ahead of him. But he and his staff will have a hard time topping this move.