Dash Daniels: Great Defensively, Questions on Offense

Dash Daniels struggled offensively in Australia's win against France in the FIBA U19 World Cup, but at least partly made up for it with his defense

Reviewing player’s film from a game in which he scored 4 points is a rather unusual exercise, but that’s what i’m going to try and do here.

Jonathan Givony has Australian Dash Daniels, brother of Dyson Daniels from the Atlanta Hawks, as his number 10 prospect in ESPN’s way-too-early 2026 NBA mock draft.

Dash is now firmly in NBA radars, which makes his start at the FIBA U19 World Cup worth examining. Daniels scored just 2 points in the opener against Team USA, following that up with a significantly more impressive 22 point outing against Cameroon. But that was on 20 field goals, chucking a total of 11 threes.

Then, in the group stage finale, Daniels had just 4 points against France, all of whom came late in the 4th: the young Aussie made both free throws when the French were fouling intentionally, and then had a dunk on a fastbreak leakout to seal the deal for Australia.

This game summed up Daniels pretty well. At 17, he’s extremely young, even in this tournament, so that’s something that you have to keep in mind when watching Daniels. The defensive chops are real. Baseline feel seems to be there. Offensive skills, well, they’re pretty much in a developmental stage. But there are flashes of promise for sure

Daniels struggled to make an impact offensively from the start. Despite making 5/11 from three against Cameroon, he’s not much of a shooter.

Daniels is also still developing as a slasher. His most impressive play in the 1st was this side pick and roll. The pick split was far from a clean one, but nevertheless, that was a pretty impressive move to pull off.

Daniels’ influence defensively grew as the first quarter progressed.

He likes to pick up players pretty high up and makes bringing the ball up the floor pretty difficult for them. Defending the pick and roll, Daniels is all about his feet and length.

He uses his nimble footwork to navigate screens and does an excellent job sliding, walling off drives and, at least in this game, was very balanced using his hands and letting his hips do the work. Here Daniels creates a steal that turns into an easy layup on the other end.

Daniels started the second with another equally impressive defensive play, switching and again nimbly sidestepping the pick, and then digging on a drive.

Another excellent defensive possession by Daniels here. As good as he is at pressuring the ball at the point of the attack, the real plus value as a guard/wing defender comes in off-ball.

Daniels logged 0.9 blocks per 40 minutes in 63 games tracked by Cerebro, indicating secondary rim protection potential. Here he doesn’t get the block, but he does slide into a rim protector position, only to perfectly read the baseline drive, disrupt the pass and then dig on another drive.

French guards had problems creating separation against Daniels all game long.

At the beginning of the second half, Australia made an attempt to involve Daniels in the offense more.

At that point, he was scoreless. Despite making 5 against Cameroon, Daniels did not look very comfortable taking those. He is still very much developing both as a shooter and a closeout attacker.

Daniels ended up sitting for a good chunk of the 3rd quarter after struggling offensively.

Upon returning to the floor, France blitzed Daniels in pick and rolls, but he responded admirably.

His handle is very much wonky, looking at the first play in real time, I felt like Daniels would lose at 2 or 3 different points in that posession, but he still managed to keep the ball and make the play.

It’s pretty clear he has baseline feel, which is inditacted by good assist-to-turnover ratios throughout his short career. It’s just that the chain of skills to unlock that feel is not there yet. In principle, he knows how to play under pressure, which was also underscored by the fact that Daniels drew a total of 6 fouls against France.

Daniels made another cluth on-ball defensive play as France was threatening a comeback in the 4th, doing an excellent job to slide his feet against Talis Soulhac and helping to force a turnover.

To finish the game off Daniels had a bit of a Ben Simmons moment at the end of the game, passing up a layup in favour of an ill-advised pass.