When Marty Clarke watched Dyson Daniels play for the first time, Daniels was 14 years old.
Daniels, who was competing in the U-16 boys basketball championships in Perth, Australia, was a year younger than most of his competitors. Only 5-foot-9 at the time, he was also several inches shorter.
The team Daniels was playing against tried to take advantage of this by pressuring him full-court. Daniels didn’t crack.
“He’s always had great composure,” Clarke said. “That was the thing that stood out even when he was 14 years old. He was tiny and they were pressuring him, but they didn’t seem to rush him. He doesn’t seem to get hurried up.”
Daniels’ ability to never get rushed is, paradoxically, part of what helped him arrive at the NBA ahead of schedule. In June, the Pelicans used the No. 8 pick on the Bendigo, Australia native. It was the second year in a row that an NBA team chose an Australian teenager in the lottery. In 2021, the Oklahoma City Thunder selected Josh Giddey with the No. 6 picks.
Daniels, 19, and Giddey, 20, overlapped for 14 months at the NBA Global Academy in Canberra, Australia. Monday, they will face each other for the first time as pros.
“The progression wasn’t expected like this,” said Clarke, who is the technical director at the NBA Global Academy in Australia. “It was, ‘They will go to college.’ They will be pros somewhere.’ Remember, they are only 19 and 20. They are not 23- and 24-year-olds who have graduated from college.”
The NBA Global Academy in Australia opened in 2017. It is one of four outposts the league has established outside of the United States. The others are in India, Mexico and Senegal.
At 16 years old, Daniels joined so he could start preparing for his future as a pro. Players practice in the morning, attend classes during the day and return to the gym in the afternoon for more training. Clarke said there is as much of a focus on learning to think about the game as there is on individual skill development.
“The piece we add is the ability to make decisions once you get past your man,” Clarke said. “Am I going to score over the top?” Am I going to get behind him? Am I going to go through him? Or do I need to pass it?
“That’s the piece I think a lot of places miss. They teach the dribble moves and finishing moves. But often in games, you don’t get to the finishing piece. You have to make a pass.”
Daniels and Giddey are both listed at 6-foot-8. They are big ballhandlers who excel at spreading the ball around to their teammates.
In a home win over the Memphis Grizzlies earlier this month, Daniels hurled an overhead pass more than 70 feet downcourt. His touchdown strike set up Naji Marshall for an uncontested layup.
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Daniels stuffed the stat sheet that night, scoring three points, grabbing nine rebounds, blocking one and grabbing one steal in 17 minutes.
“He’s only 19, but he doesn’t play like it,” Pelicans coach Willie Green said. “He understands the game at a high level.”
Daniels is the exception to the rule that NBA rookies struggle on defense. In October, Green inserted Daniels into a game against the Dallas Mavericks. His assignment was to guard MVP contender Luka Doncic. Doncic scored 37 points, but Daniels held his ground, stealing the ball from Doncic twice.
“He just has a unique ability to be ready,” Clarke said. “Most times, the offense will always have an advantage because they’re a half-step in front. When Dyson is defending you, you never get a half-step in front of him.”
In 2021, Daniels decided to leave Australia so he could join the Ignite, which allows players to gain experience against NBA G League players before entering the draft. At first, Daniels said it was difficult to be on his own thousands of miles away from home. But by the end of the season, he had become one of Ignite’s most valuable players.
“The mental side of being on your own, playing some bad games and going back to your room, it can be tough,” Daniels said. “I had to learn how to play at this level. How to get ready for games better. How to recover better. All it was, was putting in the work after games.”
Pelicans decision-makers have been impressed by Daniels’ maturity. Green has called him a “young old man.” At the NBA Global Academy, Clarke said Daniels used to sometimes take hand-written notes in film sessions.
“He’s going to be in the league for a long time because he has that maturity piece,” Clarke said.
Clarke will be watching from Australia when Daniels and Giddey play Monday. Clarke always believed a day like this would come — just not this early.
“They found a way to fast-track themselves,” Clarke said. “How does that happen? Natural ability. Hard work. And the other one is the ability to learn. Those two kids’ capacity to learn and adapt to situations thrown in front of them, which is what we do at practice. We teach them to solve problems.”
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