Dalton, a former one-on-one world champion, had high praise for Edwards’ performance in the Unrivaled one-on-one tournament.
The Washington Mystics’ second-year forward Aaliyah Edwards rattled the women’s hoops world back in February by coming within a handful of points of claiming Unrivaled’s inaugural one-on-one title.
The startup league hosts a midseason one-on-one tournament, where Edwards, who was mostly a defense-minded role player as a rookie last year in the WNBA, debuted a never-before-seen offensive bag.
After skunking Breanna Stewart 12-0 in the opening round, Edwards embarked on a Cinderella run to the tournament finals, where she fell to reigning Defensive Player of the Year Napheesa Collier.
Nobody saw Edwards’ vault to near-glory coming. But Naismith Memorial Hall of Fame nominee Tremaine Dalton can explain it.
Dalton can’t be neatly categorized into any existing mold of person who makes their living in basketball. The game is so uniquely intertwined into Dalton’s DNA that his nomination to the hall of fame as a “contributor” doesn’t nearly do his odyssey through the sport justice.
Dalton’s fingerprints cover the basketball world. He’s a trainer, an activist, a former pro, and, most notably, a former champion of various one-on-one circuits. Today, his primary calling involves training NBA and EuroLeague players in the one-on-one game as a means to open up their overall game.
That cocktail of experience makes Dalton uniquely qualified to analyze Edwards’ one-on-one tournament performance, and he was enthralled with what he saw: “She’s a lot more complete than I think people realize,” he said.
Dalton was most impressed by Edwards’ poise. “It felt like she was already prepared for this. It felt like she was ready for this,” Dalton said. Indeed, in her opening round destruction of Stewart, Edwards played with a confidence more befitting a surefire hall-of-famer such as Stewart herself, not a rising sophomore who made just three shots per game as a rookie.
Dalton makes his living training professionals in the one-on-one game, so he knows better than anyone how powerful a scouting tool it can be. “One-on-one, it can allow a coach to see that you have more abilities and assets to your game,” he said. “It can translate into five-on-five.”
Thus, Dalton is convinced that Edwards’ party-crashing one-on-one run is a sign of things to come. Consider that Edwards’ first shot attempt in the Unrivaled one-on-one tournament single-handedly surpassed her rookie season output from three-point range — Edwards nailed her first three of the tournament but attempted just seven total (and made none) in her rookie WNBA season.
In the opening round, she got to twelve points with two threes, a mid-range jumper, and two layups, including a claustrophobic baseline cut she converted with a sleek up-and-under. Remember — those 12 points were scored on Stewart, a member of last season’s All-Defensive First Team.
Dalton pointed to Edwards’ decisiveness on offense as her biggest improvement. “She didn’t waste a lot of dribbles,” he said. “Like, when she got her opportunity, she went downhill.”
Edwards’ newfound offensive assertiveness will be a critical tool in digging the Mystics’ offense out of the mud this season. Last year, Washington’s offense often stagnated to a complete crawl and relied far too often on Ariel Atkins bailing out possessions at the end of the shot clock.
Atkins is now a member of the Chicago Sky, and the offensive firepower remaining on the Mystics’ roster can be generously described as “limited.” Dalton thinks Edwards is the right fit to fill that offensive void.
Dalton noted Edwards’ potential for positional versatility. “She’s a big, strong player,” he said. “She plays the four, and from [the tournament], it looked like she could play the three.”
Playing small forward at the WNBA level will require Edwards to transform herself into at least a credible three-point threat. She made her only in-game three-point attempt of the Unrivaled season, and her showing from deep in the one-on-one tournament was impressive, but that sample size is still too small to christen Edwards’ three-point shooting as anything more than a work in progress.
Perhaps a transformed Aaliyah Edwards is in store for the upcoming WNBA season. Considering Dalton’s qualifications and observations, at least an offensively improved Edwards looks like a sure thing.