Breakout NBA guard brands his former team as ‘cursed’

Dyson Daniels has been one of the breakout stars of the 2024-25 NBA season. The Atlanta Hawks guard partly credits his success to his new team no longer being cursed.

Through 24 games with the Hawks this season, Daniels has averaged a career-high 13.5 points, 5.0 rebounds, and 3.3 assists. But his impact has been most felt on the defensive end. Daniels has led the league in steals averaging 3.0 per game and is an early contender to get a 1st-Team All-Defense nod.

If he holds that average until the end of the season, Daniels would be the first NBA player in over three decades to average at least three steals per contest.

Daniels’ sticky fingers have earned the Aussie one of the best new nicknames in the NBA, “The Great Barrier Thief.”

Earlier this week, NBA reporter Jake Fischer asked Daniels about his former team, the New Orleans Pelicans. Daniels explained that he believes he escaped some supernatural forces at work once he left the Pelicans.

“That organization’s cursed,” Daniels told Fischer. “Every year there’s something new. I’m happy I’m not there anymore.

“The curse, man. I had like four or five ankle injuries down there as well. There’s something down in that water down there or something. They got hamstrings. They got knees. They got concussions and stuff as well. They get everything down there. I don’t know what it is. Playing hard I guess?”

The Pelicans traded Daniels to the Hawks in the offseason as part of the package that brought Dejounte Murray to New Orleans. Murray ended up getting injured in his first game wearing a Pelicans uniform.

New Orleans’ All-Star trio of Murray, Brandon Ingram, and Zion Williamson have yet to play a single game together due to various injuries.

Williamson’s injury woes have pretty much defined the Pelicans’ past few seasons. Given the latest update on Williamson’s lingering hamstring injury, it’s hard to argue against Daniels’ curse theory.

H/T NBA Reddit