Darius Kinnard Garland

[Cavatt]

He is playing against absolute scrubs though.
Can't really say if he is bigger or more explosive as it is totally a different angle and competition.

I think he looks bigger for sure, but yeah those are scrubs and we know Darius is great at workouts.

 

[CleveRocks]

Expecting a point guard with two games of college experience to be an impact player in his first years is ludicrous on its face..

Points take time, which is why you draft them young and in the early stages of the rebuild. We won't really know how good he is until his third year.

I watched limited games with him on the court and watch a few highlight clips, which are misleading by themselves.. But I see some Kyrie in him.. He is a smooth athlete, with excellent handles and great shot form. But he is less physically developed than Kyrie, and is just not tough enough to wrestle with NBA bodies.. You have to be careful with that player because injury can cap his value prematurely..

I suspect there is a negative correlation between eventual NBA success and games missed due to injury in the first two years.. Sexton, despite his boneheadedness, has become an asset, in part because he has been able to stay healthy, in an almost Tristan kind of way.. To do that requires the personal commitments to strengthening your body, and not trying to over reach..

Garland played some decent minutes as a rookie, but his success will be defined by his ability to mature physically. You look at Beale today, he is completely strapped up.. Garland has to have the strength to deal with that guy, or he will get run off the court..

Porter, by comparison is much more physically advanced, so his success will be more related to his ability to develop his skills. He is the kind of player you take later in the rebuild, because he can contribute right away.. We picked him.up when we did, because circumstantially he was under valued, and it was a small gamble..

Windler missed his entire rookie year with an injury, so in my book he has a high bust risk.. I think he was a skills draft pick, and so I question whether he can modify his body enough to be competitive when he does hit the floor.. coupled with his age, he has a pretty small window.. The only thing he really has going for him is that right now, his competition is Cedi, so he could still get minutes. But if we draft a small forward this year, that could change..

 

[Ozone]

Expecting a point guard with two games of college experience to be an impact player in his first years is ludicrous on its face..

Points take time, which is why you draft them young and in the early stages of the rebuild. We won't really know how good he is until his third year.

I watched limited games with him on the court and watch a few highlight clips, which are misleading by themselves.. But I see some Kyrie in him.. He is a smooth athlete, with excellent handles and great shot form. But he is less physically developed than Kyrie, and is just not tough enough to wrestle with NBA bodies.. You have to be careful with that player because injury can cap his value prematurely..

I suspect there is a negative correlation between eventual NBA success and games missed due to injury in the first two years.. Sexton, despite his boneheadedness, has become an asset, in part because he has been able to stay healthy, in an almost Tristan kind of way.. To do that requires the personal commitments to strengthening your body, and not trying to over reach..

Garland played some decent minutes as a rookie, but his success will be defined by his ability to mature physically. You look at Beale today, he is completely strapped up.. Garland has to have the strength to deal with that guy, or he will get run off the court..

Porter, by comparison is much more physically advanced, so his success will be more related to his ability to develop his skills. He is the kind of player you take later in the rebuild, because he can contribute right away.. We picked him.up when we did, because circumstantially he was under valued, and it was a small gamble..

Windler missed his entire rookie year with an injury, so in my book he has a high bust risk.. I think he was a skills draft pick, and so I question whether he can modify his body enough to be competitive when he does hit the floor.. coupled with his age, he has a pretty small window.. The only thing he really has going for him is that right now, his competition is Cedi, so he could still get minutes. But if we draft a small forward this year, that could change..

I think Windler is a Korver type is going to be great at cutting and team defense and provide an elite outside shooting threat so unless the injury stops his mobility there is no point in overpicking a 3-4 defender like Achiuwa , I mean who are they drafting that is a SF in the top 6? Edwards,Okoro or Vassell? all 3 are really 2-3 type defenders and should be off guards and we really need a 3-4 type defender that can shoot better than Cedi but there really are none besides role players late lottery to late first like Tyler Bey who can shoot ok but is more of a great defender similar to Cedi . Maybe they can switch onto some 4's but its not ideal regarding 2-3 options.
I'd rather see them take Okongwu who can defend minimum of 4 positions probably 5. He has offensive skill around the basket to get his offense in and that is above average for his archtype. He also apparently can shoot the ball despite not seeing that in college which means his floor is higher too.
I like to see garland come off the bench and earn his starting minutes, he will do better against 2nd units anyway and a Sexton KPJ backcourt just makes more sense at this point.

 

[The Human Q-Tip]

Expecting a point guard with two games of college experience to be an impact player in his first years is ludicrous on its face..

Well, Kyrie didn't have much more than that in college, but regardless...

I don't think anyone expected Lillard to be an impact player in his rookie season. But what we did expect to see was good shooting, and a reasonable amount of progression throughout the year. Instead, he was statistically the worst player in the league, the vaunted shot was mostly missing, and the improvement we saw wasn't much.

What concerned me -- and I said this before the preseason even started -- was Beilein falling in love with the guy literally on the basis of one shooting workout. And I know that wasn't the only reason we took him, but it certainly figured into the equation. There was a lot of hype about what a steal he was, that Griff really screwed up by not drafting him when he had the chance, etc.. But what was interesting was that despite the hype that we'd gotten this draft-day steal, other teams seemed curiously uninterested in trading up with us to snag the Can't Miss Kid for themselves.

My point is not that he sucks, not that he can't improve, and not that he might not someday become an all-star caliber player. All of those things are possible, and I'm personally a big believer that getting stronger and in better shape can improve some guys' games significantly. So maybe he does it.

I'm just saying that rather than assuming he was a disappointment who performed under his reasonable projections, and so that ceiling is still there, maybe the reality is that we over-valued him right from the jump. Maybe what we saw last seasons is actually much closer to who he really was all along.

 

[The Human Q-Tip]

Windler missed his entire rookie year with an injury, so in my book he has a high bust risk.. I think he was a skills draft pick, and so I question whether he can modify his body enough to be competitive when he does hit the floor.. coupled with his age, he has a pretty small window.. The only thing he really has going for him is that right now, his competition is Cedi, so he could still get minutes. But if we draft a small forward this year, that could change..

Windler's advantage is that he has a proven, valuable NBA skill -- long distance shooting coupled with the ability to use screens very effectively -- that was demonstrated consistently over 4 years in college. Also very good off-ball skills. If he never recovers physically from his injury, then he's obviously a bust. But otherwise, a guy like that is pretty much always going to be able to keep a job in the NBA. And if he does manage to get stronger, then he can be more than just an 8th-9th guy who can shoot the lights out.

 

[prf100]

Garland did things last season that made me hopeful. We shouldn't expect Garland to make leaps like Sexton did, but given what we saw in terms of development from Sexton... we shouldn't judge Garland until he has more than three-quarters of a season in the league.

 

[Cavatt]

Expecting a point guard with two games of college experience to be an impact player in his first years is ludicrous on its face..

Points take time, which is why you draft them young and in the early stages of the rebuild. We won't really know how good he is until his third year.

I watched limited games with him on the court and watch a few highlight clips, which are misleading by themselves.. But I see some Kyrie in him.. He is a smooth athlete, with excellent handles and great shot form. But he is less physically developed than Kyrie, and is just not tough enough to wrestle with NBA bodies.. You have to be careful with that player because injury can cap his value prematurely..

I suspect there is a negative correlation between eventual NBA success and games missed due to injury in the first two years.. Sexton, despite his boneheadedness, has become an asset, in part because he has been able to stay healthy, in an almost Tristan kind of way.. To do that requires the personal commitments to strengthening your body, and not trying to over reach..

Garland played some decent minutes as a rookie, but his success will be defined by his ability to mature physically. You look at Beale today, he is completely strapped up.. Garland has to have the strength to deal with that guy, or he will get run off the court..

Porter, by comparison is much more physically advanced, so his success will be more related to his ability to develop his skills. He is the kind of player you take later in the rebuild, because hhte can contribute rig away.. We picked him.up when we did, because circumstantially he was under valued, and it was a small gamble..

Windler missed his entire rookie year with an injury, so in my book he has a high bust risk.. I think he was a skills draft pick, and so I question whether he can modify his body enough to be competitive when he does hit the floor.. coupled with his age, he has a pretty small window.. The only thing he really has going for him is that right now, his competition is Cedi, so he could still get minutes. But if we draft a small forward this year, that could change..

The interesting thing here is that they thought that Garland would be the one to shine right away, at least once his conditioning improved. He was the one with "skills" and Porter was the raw prospect who was the athlete. Porter is more physically developed, but he is younger and was supposed to be very raw, wasn't supposed to shoot the 3 well, and was going to be a terrible defender. THey expected very limited role off the bench for Porter as he got his feet wet and Windler got his minutes. By the end of the year, they couldn't keep him off the floor and he was playing the 6th man role or at least battling Larry for that.

Like Sexton, Porter dispelled a couple of his biggest flaws rather quickly, whereas Garland has had a tougher go at it, but did make his biggest strides in my opinion dealing with the physicality of the league. His floater that was absolute junk to start with looks more like a savvy vet move by the end of the season.

 

[DeeThree]

Some nice Darius plays in this game :

 

[Cavatt]

Some nice Darius plays in this game :

Yeah had some slick moves. He doesn't suck. I think he showed he is an NBA player for sure. He could still be pretty cool. He has some Kyrie like shiftiness. I think we are all just a little nervous.

He and Collin have a pretty different approach. Garland really didn't try to make any waves and held back it felt like. Collin went balls to the wall and ignored his teammates and did a bunch of bad stuff until he did it right.

That Lakers game was really pretty fun. Got out of hand in the 3rd.

 

[red.]

 

[Adam]

This video kind of highlights the biggest issue with Garland offensively. He has a lot of herky jerky moves but he never generates enough separation to account for his release point. He needs to either create bigger separation or find a way to change his release.

I mean he might just be playing with them but it mirrors some of his issues with volume of threes this season

 

[red.]

Two older videos.

Compared to now.

Seems to have gotten his quickness back. He was sluggish and slow.

 

[Sir'Dom Pointer]

This video kind of highlights the biggest issue with Garland offensively. He has a lot of herky jerky moves but he never generates enough separation to account for his release point. He needs to either create bigger separation or find a way to change his release.

I mean he might just be playing with them but it mirrors some of his issues with volume of threes this season

Couldn't get past those guys. Bah. Then he still had that layup pump fake that used to get him in trouble.

 

[narbar32]

Garland is smooth in his movements but entirely lacking when it comes to any kind of explosiveness. Granted, not every PG needs to be Russ, Ja, Wall, pre-injury Rose, etc... to be effective in the league, but more and more it's looking like Darius' physicality, agility, strength, and vertical explosiveness are all lacking to the point of being full-on hindrances, rather than just being average. There are an abundance of excuses available for this--his age, coming back from injury last year, rookie wall, now the pandemic limiting the workout opportunities, but it will remain a big concern until improvement is actually displayed.

There are / have been some pretty exceptional (on offense at least) PG's in this league whose physical attributes have been similarly lacking--Curry and Trae (though "exceptional" may be a stretch for Trae this early) coming to mind as current examples--but they pretty much all bring something extraordinary to the table to make up for it, like unlimited range or elite passing ability and court vision. It's still early, but I think it's unlikely based on current evidence that Garland ends up an elite playmaker for others even if surrounded by finishers, so I think he will really have to end up being one of those fearless shotmakers who can and will pull up from anywhere on the court and hit those shots at a pretty good clip for him to end up being a significant player in the league.

 

[Ozone]

Garland is smooth in his movements but entirely lacking when it comes to any kind of explosiveness. Granted, not every PG needs to be Russ, Ja, Wall, pre-injury Rose, etc... to be effective in the league, but more and more it's looking like Darius' physicality, agility, strength, and vertical explosiveness are all lacking to the point of being full-on hindrances, rather than just being average. There are an abundance of excuses available for this--his age, coming back from injury last year, rookie wall, now the pandemic limiting the workout opportunities, but it will remain a big concern until improvement is actually displayed.

There are / have been some pretty exceptional (on offense at least) PG's in this league whose physical attributes have been similarly lacking--Curry and Trae (though "exceptional" may be a stretch for Trae this early) coming to mind as current examples--but they pretty much all bring something extraordinary to the table to make up for it, like unlimited range or elite passing ability and court vision. It's still early, but I think it's unlikely based on current evidence that Garland ends up an elite playmaker for others even if surrounded by finishers, so I think he will really have to end up being one of those fearless shotmakers who can and will pull up from anywhere on the court and hit those shots at a pretty good clip for him to end up being a significant player in the league.

I mean he has never really been a in game dunker type even pre injury so its not like somebody told him to stop doing it like they do so many with meniscus tear history. His game is not going to ever be predicated on power or explosiveness and never has been imo.
He will be able to run 2nd units as is and provide the IQ on the floor to make some plays for himself and run plays finding the cutters and roll man but he is not going to be a good defender against starting guards even with his high IQ.
I would rather they let him focus on creating separation off the dribble to get his own shots off clean and maybe that shot they fell in love with in one on nobody or one on scrub reels will materialize into a clutch shooter off the bench who can give you 15 points in 5 minutes and not be a huge liability defensively because his roll doesnt require that much pt. I think he could become a closer if that shooting gets there, but he has to have the separation and he doesnt