NBA Awards: Atlanta Hawks Shooting Guard Dyson Daniels Wins 2024-25 Most Improved Player

The Hawks shooting guard has taken a huge leap forward this season and he earns a very well-deserved nod to take home the George Mikan Trophy for the 2024-25 Most Improved Player.

Apr 18, 2025; Atlanta, Georgia, USA; Miami Heat guard Tyler Herro (14) dribbles past Atlanta Hawks guard Dyson Daniels (5) during the second half at State Farm Arena. Mandatory Credit: Dale Zanine-Imagn Images / Dale Zanine-Imagn Images

The Most Improved Player award is always one of the more interesting awards to project. Recently, it goes to a young player that makes an expected jump from starter to All-Star status in the case of Tyrese Maxey, Brandon Ingram and Ja Morant. Sometimes, winners like Lauri Markkanen and Jimmy Butler emerged from being relatively unknown to getting All-Star nods and locking up All-Star spots.

I would argue the jump that Dyson Daniels has taken this year is worthy of the award. Fortunately, the NBA award voters agree. Today, it was announced that Daniels was named as the recipient of the 2024-25 Most Improved Player award over Cade Cunningham and Ivica Zubacs.

It is important to set the stage for what the consensus opinion was on Daniels before the season started. In New Orleans, he played 22.3 minutes per game and averaged 5.8 points on horrid shooting splits of 44.7/31.1/64.2%. His defense was certainly respected and he took on very difficult matchups with success, but the expectations were for him to be a solid rotation player in Atlanta.

Instead, he developed both his offense and defense into being an indispensable part of the Hawks' starting lineup. To illustrate exactly how much he improved, let's dive into his offensive growth this year in comparison to last year.

His increases from 2023-24 to 2024-25: +8.3 PPG, +2.0 RPG, +1.7 APG, + 1.62 SPG, +0.31 BPG, +.046 FG%, +.029 3FG%.

For some context, he is the third player since at least 1973-74 to own increases of +8.0 PPG, +2.0 RPG, +1.5 APG and 1.5 SPG from one season to the next, per Elias Sports (min. 50 games played). Of the 12 times he scored 20+ points in his career, none of them came before this season. Of the 78 times he's scored 10+ points, 60 of them were during this season.

That's even before talking about the improved impact he's brought on the defensive end. He became the first player in the 21st century to record 225+ steals after finishing with 229. He also became the first player in the 21st century to average 3.0 steals per game, the 11th best mark in NBA history. He's the first player since Rajon Rondo (2010-11) to have a steal/foul ratio of 1.2-or-higher (min. 150 steals). Even more impressively, he did this while taking on one of the five toughest defensive roles in basketball per BBall Index.

The top 5 in matchup Difficulty

1. Andrew Nembhard 2.83
2. Bilal Coulibaly 2.82
3. Luguentz Dort 2.81
4. Dyson Daniels 2.81
5. Jaylen Wells 2.68

These players guard the best offensive players

— BBall Index (@The_BBall_Index) April 19, 2025

For further convincing, the advanced stats also paint a pretty clear visual of how much better Dyson has gotten this year. He set a career high in TS% (54.5), AST% (17.9%), STL% (4.2% - led the league) all while cutting his TOV% down to 13.6% and upping his USG% up to 18.2%. His box plus-minus went from 0.6 to 1.5 (62nd-best mark in the NBA). For some context, that's above players like O.G Anunuoby, Trey Murphy III, Julius Randle, Myles Turner and Mikal Bridges. That isn't a definitive statement that he is better than those players, but he had a massive impact on any success the Hawks had in 2024-25.

Daniels does benefit from the gravity of playing off of Trae Young, but the voters correctly recognized that he shouldn't be completely dismissed as a candidate for the award because of it. He will likely get a spot on the NBA's All-Defensive First Team, which is a impressive feat for a player that was viewed as a flawed rotation player just a season ago. While the MIP award's criteria has always been a matter of debate, there's very few players who have a case as compelling as Daniels.

In just one season, Daniels has gone from a fringe member of the Pelicans' rotation to a major NBA award recipient. The trajectory of his career is only pointing up and at 22 years old, there's plenty more on the horizon for him next year.

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