Hawks' Trae Young drops firm DPOY take on Dyson Daniels after milestone
03/24/2025 01:27 AM
With there being less than a month to go before the 2024-25 NBA regular season ends, the topic of who would win the postseason awards is becoming a hot one — with the Defensive Player of the Year race being very much wide open. Voters can seemingly go in any direction, but if one were to ask Atlanta Hawks star Trae Young, the answer to the question of who the most deserving of the award is is very clear, and that is his backcourt mate, Dyson Daniels.
Daniels, who came over to the Hawks via the Dejounte Murray trade, has done nothing but turn heads with the way he’s proven to be capable of racking up huge defensive stats. And Young wants his teammate to get the recognition he deserves, expressing as much on his official account on X (formerly Twitter) following the Hawks’ 132-119 win over the Philadelphia 76ers on Sunday night.
“DPOY. No more debate,” Young wrote.
Over the past few weeks, it’s Daniels who has made the loudest case to win the illustrious DPOY award. And certainly, the Hawks guard has a strong case to win. After all, he has set a ton of defensive records this season thanks to his ability to rack up steals, and just today, he became the youngest player in NBA history to record at least 200 thefts in a single season.
Of course, gauging defensive impact goes beyond the box score and how many steals a player can rack up. Team defense is always being taken into account by voters, and by that metric, it’s not quite clear how Daniels can separate himself from the pack, especially when the Hawks currently have a defense that ranks in the middle of the pack.
Can Hawks’ Dyson Daniels win the 2025 DPOY award?
Dyson Daniels is averaging 3.1 steals per game and is currently in the middle of having the fourth-best steals season since the turn of the century with 11 more games left in the Hawks’ campaign. However, the Hawks’ defense is nothing to write home about; they currently rank 17th in the league in points allowed per 100 possessions, and voters don’t usually reward players on middling defenses with the most prestigious defensive award in the league.
If history is any indication, someone from a top-10 defense will be bagging home the award. Someone from the league’s best defense, the Oklahoma City Thunder, warrants consideration, while excellent defenders such as Evan Mobley and Draymond Green will be Daniels’ stiffest competition.
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