Hawks' Dyson Daniels robbed of Defensive Player of the Year by Cavs star

If the season Dyson Daniels just had can't win Defensive Player of the Year, a guard may never win the award ever again.

The Hawks star led the league in steals and deflections by a wide margin while also being a solid rim defender for a perimeter player.

Despite that, Daniels just finished runner-up for the award to Cavaliers big guy Evan Mobley.

MORE: Full details on Evan Mobley's DPOY win

Starting with the simplest stat, Daniels led the NBA with 3.0 steals per game. He also averaged 0.7 blocks per night. That's an incredible number of takeaways.

More than that, Daniels was an absolute defensive pest.

Daniels recorded 443 deflections on the season. That was a ginormous advantage over second-place Keon Ellis of the Kings, who finished with 272.

Daniels averaged 5.8 deflections per game, with Philly's Kelly Oubre Jr. (4.2) at about 75 percent of Daniels' output.

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The Australian star was also second in the league in loose balls recovered per game (1.0) to Josh Hart (1.1).

Daniels also ranked top-10 in the league in contested 3s.

He really did everything you could ask a guard to do defensively.

DPOY historically goes to big guys, but Daniels may have just had a historic season.

In the award history books, there won't be any record of all the great things Daniels did.

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