Dyson Daniels the people‘s champion after defensive players of the year snub

Dyson Daniels has missed out on the prestige of being named the NBA’s Defensive Player of the Year, even though his eye-catching season earned top spot on a poll of 13 coaches.

Cleveland’s Evan Mobley received 35 first-place votes and 285 total points to win the gong, voted on by 100 media members.

Daniels, whose breakout campaign featured 229 steals - the most in an NBA season since Gary Payton’s 231 for the Seattle SuperSonics in 1995-96, finished second with 25 first-place votes and a total of 197 points.

The Australian earned the moniker ‘Great Barrier Thief’ in his first season at Atlanta, lifting the Hawks into the play-in tournament while becoming the first NBA player to average more than 3.00 steals per game since Alvin Robertson in 1990-91.

The 22-year-old, who has returned home for some downtime and attended Thursday night’s AFL match between Richmond and Melbourne, also led the league in deflections.

Daniels routinely produced highlight reel fodder - and his pressure left a huge impression on rival coaches.

The Athletic asked 13 head and assistant coaches to anonymously cast 3-2-1 votes on the best defensive player of 2024-25, with voting for your own team forbidden.

Daniels comfortably finished first, tallying 42 points to almost double that of second-placed Luguentz Dort (24 points).

One coach praised the former No.8 draft pick for “doing some things we haven’t seen in a long time”, while another admitted “we were always on high alert when he was on the ball”.

“Certain things that he does, you just can’t really teach. He just has these cat-like instincts,” they said.

Mobley beat Daniels in the official count after ranking sixth in the NBA with a career-best 1.59 blocked shots per game, having also set career highs in points (18.5) and free throw attempts (4.3) for the title-contending Cavaliers.

It proved a profitable award too, with ESPN reporting that Mobley’s contract stipulates his pay will rise from 25 per cent of the team’s cap up to 30 per cent should he win Defensive Player of the Year.

That is expected to trigger a total bonus of $US45 million over the life of his current deal that runs until 2030.

Based on Daniels being a finalist for the Defensive Player of the Year, he should at least be named on the All-Defensive team when it is released by the NBA. Ben Simmons is the only Australian to have earned All-Defensive selection.

Daniels had nominated All-Defensive selection as a pre-season goal, but admitted in February he had bumped it up to be Defensive Player of the Year.

“Clearly, in my mind, he’s the Defensive Player of the Year,” Hawks coach Quin Snyder said last month.

“Maybe the conversation should go to his character.

“Because, as I’ve thought about and answered those questions about his balance, his anticipation ... I think the correlation between who he is as a player and who he is as a person is very high.”