Team context: Atlanta Hawks · Research cutoff: July 18, 2026.
Role and 2025-26 baseline
Daniels averaged 11.9 points, 6.8 rebounds, 5.9 assists, 2.0 steals, 0.4 blocks, and only 0.3 threes in 33.2 minutes across 76 starts. He shot 51.7% from the field but 61.5% from the line. The steals fell from the prior year's three-per-game eruption, but two remains category-winning production. Basketball-Reference · Hashtag player page
He remains the starting wing/defensive stopper. Kingston Flemings and Aaron Wiggins create some minute competition, but Johnson's creator role means Daniels need not become a conventional point guard to stay valuable. RotoWire outlook
2026-27 projection
| GP | Min | FG% | FT% | 3PM | PTS | REB | AST | STL | BLK | TO |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 74 | 32 | .515 | .640 | 0.4 | 12.0 | 6.5 | 5.8 | 2.0 | 0.5 | 1.8 |
Base rotation allocation: 32 of Atlanta's exactly 240 minutes.
Market and fantasy fit
- Hashtag's crowd dynasty rank was 53rd, while ESPN's early points board placed him around 110th. The spread correctly reflects the difference between category scarcity and box-score aggregation. Yahoo's
public_prerankvalue is excluded here under the team dossier's stated source policy. Hashtag dynasty ranks · ESPN points ranks - 9-cat: target picks 50-80; much earlier in punt-FT and punt-threes.
- Points: generally picks 90-120 unless the scoring system heavily rewards steals.
- Dynasty: top-60 because his defense secures real-life minutes and he is still 23.
- Best builds: punt-FT, punt-threes, or low-scoring builds that need assists, rebounds, and steals.
Range and triggers
- Floor: outside the top 100 if steals drift toward 1.5 and the FT/three deficits stay unchanged.
- Ceiling: top-35 in the right build if steals rebound above 2.4 without losing assists.
- Health: 76 games and only a few ankle/hip absences in 2025-26; no current restriction.
- Watch: free-throw mechanics, corner-three volume, and whether Flemings displaces him from any ball-handling possessions.
Career record
Pre-NBA: No college. Daniels came up in Bendigo, Victoria, played NBL1 for the Bendigo Braves in 2019, then entered the NBA Global Academy at the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra. He signed with G League Ignite on June 21, 2021 over college and NBL Next Stars offers, and in 2021-22 averaged 12.0 points, 7.1 rebounds, 5.1 assists and 2.0 steals across 26 games — a stat line that already showed the defensive-playmaker shape rather than a scorer's. He played the 2022 Rising Stars Challenge. Draft: 2022, first round, eighth overall, New Orleans — no draft-night trade. He was moved to Atlanta in July 2024 as the centerpiece of the Dejounte Murray deal.
| Season | Age | Team | GP | MPG | PTS | REB | AST | STL | BLK | 3PM | FG% | FT% | TO |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2022-23 | 19 | NOP | 59 | 17.7 | 3.8 | 3.2 | 2.3 | 0.7 | 0.2 | 0.5 | .418 | .650 | 1.0 |
| 2023-24 | 20 | NOP | 61 | 22.3 | 5.8 | 3.9 | 2.7 | 1.4 | 0.4 | 0.7 | .447 | .642 | 1.0 |
| 2024-25 | 21 | ATL | 76 | 33.8 | 14.1 | 5.9 | 4.4 | 3.0 | 0.7 | 1.1 | .493 | .593 | 2.0 |
| 2025-26 | 22 | ATL | 76 | 33.2 | 11.9 | 6.8 | 5.9 | 2.0 | 0.4 | 0.3 | .517 | .615 | 1.8 |
| Career | 272 | 27.5 | 9.4 | 5.1 | 4.0 | 1.9 | 0.4 | 0.6 | .488 | .614 | 1.5 |
Fantasy history: 2022-23 and 2023-24: not rosterable in standard leagues, outside the top 150. 2024-25: early-second-round 9-cat value on a Yahoo ADP of 143.9 — he beat his category ADP by over 100 spots, the largest gap in the league that season, and won Most Improved Player while leading the NBA in steals at 3.01. 2025-26: a clear step down in category value with steals cut by a third and threes down to 0.3, plausibly a top-60 to top-80 finish rather than a second-round one, though no published season-end rank was verifiable. Points leagues have consistently rated him 40 to 60 spots worse than categories, because steals are the bulk of his edge and standard points scoring pays them a single unit.
Durability: 59 games (2022-23), 61 games (2023-24), 76 games (2024-25), 76 games (2025-26). The rookie-year absences were spread across minor issues including a right ankle sprain that ended his 2022 Summer League. The 2023-24 loss is the significant one: a torn lateral meniscus in the left knee announced February 12, 2024, after 52 games, from which he returned for the final stretch. Since arriving in Atlanta he has played 76 games in each of two seasons with only scattered ankle and hip absences, and no knee recurrence. The availability profile now reads as a strength.
Trajectory: The 2024-25 leap was a role change, not a skill discontinuity — 22.3 minutes became 33.8, and Atlanta pointed him at the opposing primary ball handler every night, which converted his existing deflection rate into a historic steals number. What 2025-26 shows is more interesting: the steals regressed toward the mean, as three-per-game seasons always do, but assists rose from 4.4 to 5.9 and FG% from .493 to .517 while usage fell, meaning the underlying offensive player kept improving even as the headline category collapsed. The three-point line went the wrong way, 1.1 makes to 0.3, and that plus a .614 career FT% is the structural cap on his standard-league value. He turns 24 in March 2027 and is entering year five, so he sits at the front of the curve with room for the shot to stabilize rather than the athleticism to fade. For 2026-27 the honest read is that two steals is the baseline and the 2024-25 season was the outlier, which makes him a build-dependent piece rather than an every-format asset.
Career sources: ESPN career stats · Wikipedia · ESPN, torn meniscus report · RotoWire, 2024-25 breakout context
Open questions
- Is two steals the new baseline or the midpoint between 2024-25 and 2025-26?
- Can he become even a low-volume three-point contributor?
- Does the crowded guard room reduce minutes below 32?