How do you perceive Darius Garland?

[HotelVitale]

It honestly feels like he's just plateaued into that fringe all star point guard category.

Can he get better? Of course.

But he's never going to be the tallest, strongest, fastest etc player in a game. So growth from him requires specifically him getting better on his handles and his shooting.

Well he's already showed he's an incredible shooter and ballhandler and passer, that's the weird part. He reached very high levels and looked like he could kinda do whatever, had an answer for anything the defense could throw his way.

[louc1970]

I still really like his tools, but he had a rough year and I think playing next to Mitchell is hurting his development. But send him to Orlando and they'd be monsters.

Orlando would be a great fit for him. same with the Pelicans and Spurs.

Cleveland will be really interesting this offseason. Either Mitchell is staying and they should dangle Garland, or Mitchell is leaving and they have to hold onto Garland for dear life. If they enter next season with both PGs on their roster, that'll be a colossal mistake IMO.

I've suggested various Garland for Franz or Ingram based trades, but the Cavs can't pursue those until Spida commits.

If Orlando would swap Franz for Garland, I would make that trade regardless of Mitchell resigning.
Cleveland could then trade either Mitchell or Mobley and get back the missing pieces.

[Roger Murdock]

He’s grossly misused by Cleveland coaches

[bmurph128]

I used to love him and considered him one of the best upcoming talents at point guard. He's not the same and hasn't been the same since Mitchell came to town.

In the regular season, the year prior to Mitchell and his first year with Mitchell were nearly identical. This season he had the injury issues. So this is not correct IMO, and I think people are really lacking context on the Cavs the last two years.

Last season we had one of the best net ratings in the league - and choked due to inexperience, mostly.

This season we won 48 games and for a time looked like one of the better teams in the league. All the while, here are the games missed in those two years:

2023: Garland (13), Mitchell (14), Allen (14), Mobley (3)
2024: Garland (25), Mitchell (27), Allen (5), Mobley (32)

You can look at the difference in injuries between those two years and see that its pretty telling that the Cavs only lost 3 games more than in 2023 despite THAT much of a difference in missed games by our top 4 players.

Other teams deal with injuries too, so I don't know that the Cavs get any higher than the 4 seed if we assume injuries are even across the board - but Mitchell and Garland both would be playing better than they are now, and I don't think there would be the same perception about Garland. He's a really good player.

Where Cavs fans lose me though, is when they start talking about him being more valuable than Mitchell.

[basketballRob]

Orlando would be a great fit for him. same with the Pelicans and Spurs.

Cleveland will be really interesting this offseason. Either Mitchell is staying and they should dangle Garland, or Mitchell is leaving and they have to hold onto Garland for dear life. If they enter next season with both PGs on their roster, that'll be a colossal mistake IMO.

I've suggested various Garland for Franz or Ingram based trades, but the Cavs can't pursue those until Spida commits.

If Orlando would swap Franz for Garland, I would make that trade regardless of Mitchell resigning.
Cleveland could then trade either Mitchell or Mobley and get back the missing pieces.

Orlando could potentially have $40m in cap space to offer Mitchell a max contract in 2025 if he doesn't sign an extension. Paolo, Franz, and Mitchell on Orlando.

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[cupcakesnake]

I don't think it's the best time to evaluate Garland because he had a rough year. He couldn't stay healthy, and the Cavs were a wild ride of constantly shuffling lineups that he was in an out of. With the Cavs finding their stride with Mitchell/Allen-ccentric offense, the injured Garland kept returning to a lineup that wasn't sure what to do with him. All that said it's not like he was awful this year. His numbers were down but not out.

He still strikes me as one of the most fluid combinations of shooting, passing, and dribbling in the NBA. He's simply one of the best pull up 3-point shooters, and he does great things with the ball in his hands. He doesn't have many physical advantages though, so there is some ceiling there compared to other guards.

I'm still a big fan and remain high on him in a down year.

[Sane]

Very underutilized, he should be running a high octane offense with a diversity of scoring options. It's not a great fit for him there but I also understand why they'd want to keep him.

Maybe moving Allen for a PF who can score would open up options for him as well. It's hard to think of a system he doesn't fit in except one where he's asked to be off ball with Mitchell for a significant amount of time.

[toooskies]

Garland wants to be a pass-first guy. He'd rather throw an oop to Mobley or Allen than take a shot himself.

Garland has battled a ton of injuries. Early in the year he had a hand injury he played through. Then a hamstring injury. Then the jaw where he wasn't allowed to exert himself and was drinking through a straw-- he lost 15 pounds and I'm sure plenty of it was muscle mass. His conditioning took a little while to get back. At the end of the year and early in the Orlando series, his back was acting up.

Because of all those injuries Garland has stopped trying to draw contact on drives and in turn hasn't been finishing particularly well at the rim. Because of the early hand injury his three point shooting early in the season dropped.

Garland's always been on a "loose" rhythm and when intensity goes up, that throws him off. He's not particularly good in transition and loves a pick-and-roll set.

People say Mitchell and Garland are in conflict but actually, Garland's been most effective with Mitchell on the floor. You saw it against Orlando in game 7-- Mitchell's out there trying to set Garland up, unlike most other players on the team. He's the only one driving to purposely get Garland a good shot. Garland has been less effective running his own show, or with LeVert enabling him.

Garland seems to shrink like a role player in big moments, particularly on the road. You almost want to sit him in fourth quarters.

He could score 50 some nights if he wanted to, but he very rarely wants to.

He's probably Donovan Mitchell's best friend on the team. The politics of trading Garland would be complicated if the Cavs retain Mitchell even though that would likely be best for the team's on-court fit.

Garland's season probably has his trade value dipping, so this isn't the off-season to trade him even if the offseason determination is to split up Garland and Mitchell. But you also don't know if he's ever going to be the second-best player on a title team.

He plays remarkably good defense for his size, but that doesn't mean he isn't a short, slight PG.

[DOT]

He's really good, but he's just a poor fit next to D Mitch

It's similar to why I've never wanted the Knicks to try and pair D Mitch with Brunson, it's not a talent issue but a fit issue.

[Godymas]

he's actually been disappointing considering the hype he had early on.

He had one All Star year, and there was a lot of big co-signs, notably Steph Curry said he saw really bright things in the future of Darius Garland, had him as the most hyped up young guard.

Since then, it might have a little to do with the fact that Mitchell took over, but DG has kind of been a more average player. This season in particular, he showed a bunch of regression in his game. He might be closer to that DLo trajectory than Ja or Curry All NBA trajectory

[doogie_hauser]

Doesn't really work well in the same backcourt as Spida (which is a reason I don't think Mitchell could work alongside Brunson at The Knicks)

For some (annoying) reason he often has good shooting nights against The Celtics.

[Chokic]

I'm really high on him despite his down year. Stylistically he reminds me alot of Steve Nash the way he shoots and moves around the court to find open players. As previously mentioned spurs would be the ideal destination to play alongside wemby and barring injuries they will be a guaranteed playoff team next year if that happens.

[JujitsuFlip]

We have 15 players that are better Doncic, Curry, Shai, Brunson, Haliburton, Lillard, Morant, Irving, Trae, Jrue, Harden, Jamal, Fox, Maxey, and LaMello.

Then we still have Dejonte Murray, Derrick White, Fred Van Vleet, Conley, Cade, Coby White...

That is more a list of guys who handle the ball than PGs. Garland is a legit PG, the only position he plays. A vast majority of those guys are combos, some even sliding to the 3 at times. Garland plays 1 and only 1.

[Richard4444]

We have 15 players that are better Doncic, Curry, Shai, Brunson, Haliburton, Lillard, Morant, Irving, Trae, Jrue, Harden, Jamal, Fox, Maxey, and LaMello.

Then we still have Dejonte Murray, Derrick White, Fred Van Vleet, Conley, Cade, Coby White...

That is more a list of guys who handle the ball than PGs. Garland is a legit PG, the only position he plays. A vast majority of those guys are combos, some even sliding to the 3 at times. Garland plays 1 and only 1.

So you are saying Garland is worse than these players because he is less dynamic.

[DowJones]

Garland for Franz makes so much sense for both teams.

[CometGM]

The CJ McCollum of point guards.

[mg]

I think Donovan Mitchell works better as the PG in Cleveland. The Cavs best play of the season ironically occurred when Garland and Mobley were injured and they were rolling out a clear #1 guard and one defensive big. It just gets way too muddled trying to play with 2 small ball dominant guards and 2 defensive/offensively challenged bigs in the starting lineup.

Garland could work really well on other teams (Pels, Spurs come to mind). His lone all star appearance was as an injury replacement a few years ago when the game was in Cleveland. He still has a lot to prove though. He had that one good playoff game against the Knicks last year but overall he's been pretty disappointing the last 2 years in the postseason.

[JonFromVA]

I still really like his tools, but he had a rough year and I think playing next to Mitchell is hurting his development. Send him to Orlando and they'd be monsters.

Not sure what to vote, he's clearly not top 10, but that 10-20 range gets very muddled.

Mitchell was there last year and Garland had the best season of his career. He's much worse this year.

His efficiency has dropped across the board. Lower free throw rate, and lower shooting percentages. Even his free throw percentage is at a career low this year. His assist rate has dropped as well. His defensive metrics also appear to have dropped.

Garland has talent. He's proven that. He might be dealing with some injury or mental block this year or something.

There's no might to it. The list of injuries he's dealt with has gotten pretty endless and his ability to play at 100% has been very brief.

Besides back problems he's currently playing through, he never fully regained the weight, strength, and stamina he had before his jaw was broken, wired shut, and he had to eat food through a straw.

Donovan Mitchell has been giving him quite a lesson recently in what it takes to persevere through injury; and maybe, just maybe he'll learn to overcome at least the mental part of not being able to physically perform like he expects.

[Doctor MJ]

I clearly remember there was a time when the (majority) of this board is very high on Darius Garland. I certainly have seen some people stated that they would rather have Garland over Ja, Zion, LaMelo and Edwards. He was in a lot of conversations with the top upcoming stars. But it seems like his hype train has been moving really slow these days. Or even dead. No one is talking and raving about him.

I'm curious to know how other people think about Garland right now. Are you still high on him? And where do you rank him amongst point guards?

My main thought is that the experiment with he and Mitchell really doesn't seem to work.

For this reason I think Mitchell trade was a mistake - given all they gave up - but if Mitchell was gung-ho about staying in Cleveland I'd look to keep him and trade Garland.

Either way I think the Cavs should probably be trading away one of the guards and one of their bigs. The theory behind the team gives them a low ceiling.

In terms of Garland's future, presuming their are no permanent health red flags, I'd be happy to acquire him on a team where I needed a point guard. People have talked about him to the Spurs, and that sounds reasonable to me.

[R-DAWG]

I perceive Darius Garland as needing to be the 3rd best player in the series against Boston (with some combination of Mitchell/Tatum being 1/2) for Cleveland to have a chance to win the series.

Long term, Cleveland has some interesting fit decisions they need to make with their roster both with Garland/Mitchell and Allen/Mobley. Because I think there is a real argument to be made that the fit with Mitchell is holding back Garland's growth and that there isn't enough floor spacing with Allen/Mobley.

But right now, Cleveland has a 2nd round series coming up in which they have a chance to win, even if they aren't the favorites. The path is there if these three things happen:
1) Mitchell has a better series than Tatum - which is very possible as we have seen Mitchell dominate playoff series before and we have seen Tatum shot making ebb and flow.
2) Cleveland's bigs (Allen/Mobley) are very impactful, magnifying the loss or Porzingis for Boston. This includes Mobley defending Tatum on the perimeter.
3) Garland has a better series than all 3 of Brown/Holiday/White - similar to #1 above, this is very possible.