‘I’m unique’: Dyson Daniels on his NBA niche, missing three-pointers… and investing tips
He is a shooting guard that doesn’t often shoot,A wing deployed less for lift than pressure,The style of Australia’s best basketballer, Dyson Daniels, is difficult to describe,“It’s kind of hard for me to describe it too,” he says,“It’s unique.
”He runs the point, and rebounds to make another,And, yes, he is perhaps the NBA’s best defender,“It’s different every game, put it that way,”The 23-year-old is in the MCG members room at the Victorian Sport Awards on Wednesday evening receiving a trophy for athletic excellence named after a former state politician,Some things are hard to explain.
Others are worth the effort,Since the success of the Golden State Warriors a decade ago, propelled by sharpshooters Steph Curry and Klay Thompson, the NBA’s three-point shot has been central to the stratégie du jour,The thinking was that if players can only shoot a two-pointer at a rate a little better than one time in every two attempts, they might as well try from three-point range … even if they shoot a slightly lower percentage from further out,Say 38%,Even 35%.
It was simple risk v reward.By that worldview, Daniels’ shooting slump this season – his three-point success rate was 19%, one of the worst marks in the league – should make him unplayable as a player that spends most of his time beyond the three-point line.But thanks to his defence, rebounding, and transition play, as well as effectiveness as an unconventional offensive playmaker, he has become one of the most important contributors for the resurgent Hawks.Atlanta pushed the formidable New York Knicks in the first round of the playoffs before succumbing in six games, despite trading away their franchise point guard in January.Daniels, back home in Australia on his brief off-season, remains his own critic.
“I’m pretty disappointed with how the season went to be honest – and it’s from an individual standpoint, I think our team really took a step,” he says,“I didn’t shoot the ball how I wanted to this year,”He still found ways to be effective,Rather than take shots, Daniels would increasingly hand the ball to teammates, then obstruct the defence to given them an opportunity to shoot,It was a formula that seemed to work.
“We found a lot of success in that as well,” he says,In the NBA, however, a single strategy is quickly exposed,And so Daniels leaned on his cascade of counters,“Sometimes when I’m the playmaker, [the defence is] so far off I can just see everything and play free,A few teams will try to take that away and put a lot of pressure on me, and that’s when I can become more of a downhill playmaker and get to the rim and find teammates that way,” he says.
“I think my playmaking really took a step this year, it’s just obviously [improving] the shooting will open everything up, so that’s going to be a big focus for me this off-season,”If Daniels’ shooting develops, he could become one of basketball’s elite two-way players,Yet no longer does every road lead to the three-point line,Amid the emergence of the relentless, physical defences in Oklahoma City, San Antonio and Detroit, stopping shots – not just taking them – is in vogue,That’s Daniels’ bread and butter, having been named to the NBA’s All-Defensive Team last season in a year he also won the league’s Most Improved Player award.
Not long after he signed a contract that will see his annual salary rise from US$7.7m ($10.6m) to US$25m ($34.5m) in July.This lofty income bracket is reserved for only the most elite in Australian sport, including Formula One driver Oscar Piastri, golfer Cameron Smith and Daniels’ Boomers teammate Josh Giddey.
Shooter or not, Daniels is valued handsomely.Four-time All-Star DeMarcus Cousins, visiting Australia for the NBA House promotion in Port Melbourne this week, describes Daniels’ worth succinctly: “What he does on the defensive side of the ball, he’s already carved out his niche in his league, so everything else is just a plus.”Daniels first pay cheque on his new deal arrives in two months.“It’s good to have that guaranteed money and security, but it comes with a lot of other things too, a lot of responsibility and decision making,” he says.He wants to help find his parents the right house, and continue to build his share and property portfolio.
Not even a personal briefing from his Boomers teammate and tech-bro Matthew Dellavedova, however, managed to steer him towards more alternative asset classes.“I’m bit iffy on Bitcoin,” Daniels says.“Once, he [Dellavedova] got a hold of me, he sat me down for a good hour and gave me the presentation, so I’m a bit iffy on that.”Florida has been the focus of Daniels’ real estate investments so far.He says he hasn’t looked extensively at opportunities in Australia, but is aware of the changes to negative gearing in Tuesday’s budget.
“You’ve got to look at that carefully,” he says.“But yeah, I mean, it’s all risk and reward.”
Google announces raft of free upgrades for Android phones
Google has announced a range of features coming to Android phones this year, including a new Gemini Intelligence AI system and a tool to help users avoid distracting apps.Revealed in a livestreamed “Android Show” event, the free upgrades are scheduled to arrive in waves over the next year for high-end new and old phones alike, including Samsung and Pixel devices. Google also revealed that a new lineup of laptops will arrive in the autumn.Gemini Intelligence will combine the company’s top AI tools into one system aimed at being more proactively useful.It will be able to automate tasks by directly interacting with the apps already on a phone
Head of Microsoft’s Israel branch to step down after inquiry into dealings with Israeli military
The head of Microsoft’s Israeli subsidiary will step down in the wake of an inquiry that has scrutinised its business dealings with the Israeli military.Microsoft ordered the inquiry last year in response to a Guardian investigation revealing the military had used the company’s technology to operate a powerful surveillance system that collected Palestinian civilian phone calls on a mass scale.The joint investigation with the Israeli-Palestinian publication +972 Magazine and the Hebrew-language outlet Local Call found the military’s elite spy agency, Unit 8200, had used Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform to store a vast trove of intercepted calls from Gaza and the West Bank.The inquiry commissioned by Microsoft is understood to have recently concluded. Its findings are unclear; however, sources familiar with the situation said they prompted an announcement last week that Microsoft Israel’s general manager, Alon Haimovich, would leave the company
GameStop’s $55.5bn bid for eBay rejected as ‘neither credible nor attractive’
The board of eBay has rejected the US video games retailer GameStop’s surprise $55.5bn bid (£41bn) for the online marketplace, describing the proposal as “neither credible nor attractive”.Earlier this month, GameStop made an unsolicited bid for eBay, publishing a letter on its website outlining a half-cash, half-stock proposal.This was despite the US games company – which became a global household name during the meme stock craze of 2021 – being worth far less than its takeover target. GameStop had a market valuation of roughly $12bn before its bid, almost a quarter of eBay’s $46bn valuation
Trump heads to China to spread the gospel of American tech
Hello, and welcome to TechScape. I’m your host, Blake Montgomery, US tech editor at the Guardian.Donald Trump is headed to China this week. If his guest list is any clue, he wants to discuss technology with Xi Jinping, though perhaps after the war in Iran.On Monday, news broke that outgoing Apple CEO, Tim Cook, as well as SpaceX and Tesla’s CEO, Elon Musk, would join Trump
Trump heads to China to spread the gospel of American tech while emulating Xi Jinping on AI
Donald Trump is heading to China this week. If his guest list is any clue, he wants to discuss technology with Xi Jinping, though perhaps after the war in Iran.On Monday, news broke that outgoing Apple CEO, Tim Cook, as well as SpaceX and Tesla CEO, Elon Musk, would join the US president. Other guests from the tech sphere include Meta’s recently appointed president, Dina Powell McCormick; Sanjay Mehrotra, CEO of computer memory maker Micron; Chuck Robbins, CEO of longtime telecom giant Cisco; and Cristiano Amon, CEO of semiconductor maker Qualcomm, according to a White House official.Jensen Huang, Nvidia’s CEO – who is close to Trump but criticized the US’s limitations on chip sales to China in an April interview, saying that he didn’t want a “loser mentality” to cost the US its edge in AI – will not be joining the president
Molière Ex Machina: AI used to create ‘new work’ by beloved French playwright
Molière is to the French what Shakespeare is to the English: the last word in historical literature, drama, wit and satire.Now, more than 350 years after his death, the 17th-century dramatist has been revived after scholars at the Sorbonne University in Paris used artificial intelligence to help write an experimental play in his style.L’Astrologue ou les Faux Présages (The Astrologer, or False Omens), a three-act comedy, made its debut at the Royal Opera at the Château de Versailles last week.The two-hour play tells the story of a wealthy bourgeois Parisian who, under the instruction of a charlatan astrologer called Pseudoramus, insists his daughter Lucile marry a debt-ridden and elderly wigmaker.While the theme could well have been dreamed up by Molière, the dialogue, music, costumes and scenery were all created with the help of a French AI tool called Le Chat (The Cat)
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Ah, ah, ah, ah - I saved my dad’s life with a little help from The Office and the Bee Gees