Atlanta Hawks guard Dyson Daniels has been named the NBA Most Improved Player, the NBA announced Tuesday.
Daniels appeared in 76 games (all starts) in his first season with the Hawks, averaging career highs of 14.1 points, 5.9 rebounds, 4.4 assists, 3.01 steals, 0.72 blocks, .493 FG% and .340 3FG%, in a career-best 33.8 minutes per game.
From the 2023-24 season to 2024-25, the third-year guard recorded improvements of 8.3 points, 2.0 rebounds, 1.7 assists, 1.62 steals, 0.31 blocks, .046 FG% and .029 3FG%. Daniels became just the third player since 1973-74 to own improvements of +8.0 points per game, +2.0 rebounds per game, +1.5 assists per game and +1.5 steals per game from one season to the next, per Elias Sports (min. 50 games played).
He is just the fifth player since 1973-74 to average at least 14.0 points, 5.0 rebounds, 4.0 assists and 3.0 steals in a single season, joining Magic Johnson (1980-81), Michael Jordan (1987-88), Michael Ray Richardson (2x) and Alvin Robertson (4x).
Daniels, who finished second in the voting for Defensive Player of the Year, owned a league-best 3.01 steals per game this past season, the first player to average over 3.0 steals per game since Alvin Robertson in 1990-91. He swiped 229 total steals, the most thefts in a single season in franchise history and the most by any player in the NBA since Gary Payton in 1995-96 (231), a season in which Payton was named Defensive Player of the Year. He owned 98 more steals than the next closest player (Shai Gilgeous-Alexander: 131), marking the largest gap between No. 1 and No. 2 in NBA history.
The two-time Eastern Conference Defensive Player of the Month finished the season with a steal-to-foul ratio of 1.31 (229 steals to 175 fouls), the ninth-best steal-to-foul ratio since 1973-74 and the best by any player in the league since Allen Iverson in 2002-03 (1.51).
Daniels, 22, became the first player in the NBA to tally 200+ steals and 50+ blocks in a single season since Scottie Pippen in 1994-95, and just the seventh player in the NBA to do so since 1973-74, joining Hall-of-Famers Clyde Drexler (3x), Michael Jordan (6x), Hakeem Olajuwon and Pippen (3x), as well as Ron Harper (1986-87) and Alvin Robertson (1987-88).
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