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Darius Kinnard Garland

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What is Darius Garland's Ceiling?

  • One Time All-Star

    Votes: 14 8.9%
  • Occasional All-Star

    Votes: 16 10.2%
  • 5-6 Time All-Star

    Votes: 31 19.7%
  • Perennial All-Star

    Votes: 40 25.5%
  • An All-NBA Team or Two

    Votes: 23 14.6%
  • Perennial All-NBA Teamer

    Votes: 20 12.7%
  • Occasional MVP Candidate

    Votes: 11 7.0%
  • Perennial MVP Candidate

    Votes: 2 1.3%
  • MVP, Baby!

    Votes: 10 6.4%
  • Being Jim Chones

    Votes: 12 7.6%

  • Total voters
    157
I heard he didn't miss a single shot in the gym....

Season 2 is going to be interesting for him and Porter. I think Porter will start to become a superstar while Garland will show everyone that he belows in the league.
 
Had the radio on 92.3 earlier today and they were talking about Garland being the worst player in the NBA by some measure. Not sure exactly what they were talking about.
 
Had the radio on 92.3 earlier today and they were talking about Garland being the worst player in the NBA by some measure. Not sure exactly what they were talking about.

Prob the same one that Sexton was the worst last year.

I think it is obvious Darius wasn't in shape day 1 and struggled with physical play all year. He wasn't ready unlike Porter jr who just went and played.

Still, he got a lot better over the course of the season. Turnovers came down, defense and physicality improved.

I've heard small comments from redrafts and things where people have confidence in him that aren't Cavs fans.

People have praised his floater which did not go in for months, but had started to drop with good efficiency.

He stopped picking up his dribble.

Looks like he has been working on his body which is the most important thing right now. He has good instincts and feel for the game, but he looks like a kid out there getting bullied.
 
The biggest problem for Garland was not being capable to live up to being a top 10 prospect in that strong of a draft. He will be a decent offensive bench player if he continues with only minor reasonable improvements more probably than a starter in the NBA. Reason for this is the obvious clutch gene and finishing prowess he showed on tape did not transfer against the Pro level defenses going from no defense highschool opponents which is essentially what he did straight from HS to NBA with so little game reps in college.
I think at this point a realistic outlook is a 6th man type scorer that can run a 2nd unit against lesser defenders and not have to worry about defending elite NBA points on starting units.
Sexton definitely showed me enough to see him as the better long term value barring some insane yr 1 to 2 climb from Darius.
 
Pickup king, workout warrior. Let's see that actually translate.
yeah he will be better year 2, but it was the nba defenses that stymied his growth yr 1 more than his rehab status. I mean he played all damn season it is not like he couldn't play because he was not conditioned.
getting stronger is one thing, not having the speed or length to compensate for tougher defenses means you have to improve the much more difficult shots so you make them look easy and coaches give you the green
yr 2 will make or break him imo
 
He was very much a Beilein pick so will be interesting to see what happens from here
 
Prob the same one that Sexton was the worst last year.

I think it is obvious Darius wasn't in shape day 1 and struggled with physical play all year. He wasn't ready unlike Porter jr who just went and played.

Still, he got a lot better over the course of the season. Turnovers came down, defense and physicality improved.

I've heard small comments from redrafts and things where people have confidence in him that aren't Cavs fans.

People have praised his floater which did not go in for months, but had started to drop with good efficiency.

He stopped picking up his dribble.

Looks like he has been working on his body which is the most important thing right now. He has good instincts and feel for the game, but he looks like a kid out there getting bullied.

It might be basketball references VORP.

Garland's VORP is -1.7 which was 514th out of 514. For comparison Kevin Porter Jr is at -0.5 (484th tie with 11 others).

Last year Sexton's was -1.8 which was 529th out of 530 with only Kevin Knox's being worst. This year Sexton's is +0.1 which is 239th (tie with 39 others). Sexton's VORP improvement is the 2nd highest of any of last year's first round draft choices with only Trae Young's (+0.9 to +3.2) being larger.

The problem is playing Garland and Sexton together is and will probably always be a defensive disaster.
 
It might be basketball references VORP.

Garland's VORP is -1.7 which was 514th out of 514. For comparison Kevin Porter Jr is at -0.5 (484th tie with 11 others).

Last year Sexton's was -1.8 which was 529th out of 530 with only Kevin Knox's being worst. This year Sexton's is +0.1 which is 239th (tie with 39 others). Sexton's VORP improvement is the 2nd highest of any of last year's first round draft choices with only Trae Young's (+0.9 to +3.2) being larger.

The problem is playing Garland and Sexton together is and will probably always be a defensive disaster.

Don't disagree with the bolded part.

yeah I don't know what the point of advanced stats is for 1st year players. All year statistics don't make as much sense for players getting their feet wet as guys who already have a lot of minutes. I don't think it is fair to point to how bad Cam Reddish was using all year stats, when he really got better on defense and shot the ball better every month. It's not just our players. Sexton had a similar thing the past 2 years. He started really bad, and got sorta good. This past year he looked like he had regressed for awhile and had a bad shooting slump and then I saw how he was suddenly playing better later and then really fit into a team concept after JB took over.

Garland's floater was dead on arrival or so we were lead to believe at the beginning of the year, and then he ended up putting up an ok percentage on those. It will prob be an advanced floater for a 20 year old next year.

I do think Garland showed he is a genuine NBA player. He flashed some potential. He still has a ceiling that is intriguing. I don't know how they figure out the rotation and keep both Sexton and Garland unless as we have been saying from the beginning one of them can come off the bench and their play together is limited. If they were both really good at finding each other and just destroyed defenses with shooting and penetration, I guess it could work, but even then it makes you very vulnerable and makes you have to go for big swings like Drummond to find a way to mitigate their defenselessness.
 
Don't disagree with the bolded part.

yeah I don't know what the point of advanced stats is for 1st year players. All year statistics don't make as much sense for players getting their feet wet as guys who already have a lot of minutes. I don't think it is fair to point to how bad Cam Reddish was using all year stats, when he really got better on defense and shot the ball better every month. It's not just our players. Sexton had a similar thing the past 2 years. He started really bad, and got sorta good. This past year he looked like he had regressed for awhile and had a bad shooting slump and then I saw how he was suddenly playing better later and then really fit into a team concept after JB took over.

Garland's floater was dead on arrival or so we were lead to believe at the beginning of the year, and then he ended up putting up an ok percentage on those. It will prob be an advanced floater for a 20 year old next year.

I do think Garland showed he is a genuine NBA player. He flashed some potential. He still has a ceiling that is intriguing. I don't know how they figure out the rotation and keep both Sexton and Garland unless as we have been saying from the beginning one of them can come off the bench and their play together is limited. If they were both really good at finding each other and just destroyed defenses with shooting and penetration, I guess it could work, but even then it makes you very vulnerable and makes you have to go for big swings like Drummond to find a way to mitigate their defenselessness.

I want to say something else about posting all year stats for rookies Darius and KPJ. We had this argument last year about whether Sexton was the worst player in the NBA or not. His whole year stats were bad, but just like this year his numbers were fine or even good after a great deal of struggle.

KPJ is a good example of why you shouldn't do this. He was a bad 3pt shooter right with his 33%?

IN Oct he shot 12.5%
Nov 23%
Dec 37%
January 46%
February 45%

Now tell me that dude is a bad shooter? Looks like a guy who shot 41% in college getting used to the NBA line to me. Those numbers the first 2 months when he was getting inconsistent minutes his % was in Drummond territory.

The other thing you find when you dig in is that he was crap off the dribble and good off the catch. He started taking better shots and his percentages went way up.

Darius improved too. You have to be careful what conclusions you draw from this stuff.
 
I want to say something else about posting all year stats for rookies Darius and KPJ. We had this argument last year about whether Sexton was the worst player in the NBA or not. His whole year stats were bad, but just like this year his numbers were fine or even good after a great deal of struggle.

KPJ is a good example of why you shouldn't do this. He was a bad 3pt shooter right with his 33%?

IN Oct he shot 12.5%
Nov 23%
Dec 37%
January 46%
February 45%

Now tell me that dude is a bad shooter? Looks like a guy who shot 41% in college getting used to the NBA line to me. Those numbers the first 2 months when he was getting inconsistent minutes his % was in Drummond territory.

The other thing you find when you dig in is that he was crap off the dribble and good off the catch. He started taking better shots and his percentages went way up.

Darius improved too. You have to be careful what conclusions you draw from this stuff.

I definitely agree that the trends are more important for rookies then the overall average -- and you can probably throw out the first half season.

Just wanted to point out that the VORP might have been what one of the previous posters was talking about.

In any case, Sexton's VORP is not that bad this year -- it is tied for 13th out last year's first round draft choices, so a big improvement for Garland is definitely possible,
 

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