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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
We once had both Mark Price and Kevin Johnson and we traded Johnson eventually.

Just to put that in perspective, KJ was traded by the Cavs in February of his rookie season when it became clear he was good enough to be the starting PG for another team.

Cavs rightly decided they couldn't maximize his value by making him a sixth man or playing him out of position.

Interesting argument as to who was better. Price was a far better three point shooter - KJ was horrible from 3. But KJ was better at pretty much every other aspect of the game.
 
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There are some guys like Wade and Draymond who can play significantly bigger than their size because they're ridiculously talented defensive players. So I buy that there's a handful of 6'2" guys in the world who can competently guard SGs on a daily basis. But based on Sexton's track record, he's almost certainly not one of them...he has a long way to guard just one position adequately, let alone multiple positions. It's just not in the cards. It's more reasonable to hope that Garland will be a Curry-level shooter than it is to hope that Sexton will be able to guard SGs, and I say that as a guy who's not super confident in Garland.



The "we really don't know" defense is worthless to me. I suppose we really don't know if Tristan can make 3's, so we should keep an open mind, give him plenty of opportunities to bomb away from deep, and see what happens, right? No, of course not...all players have weaknesses, and the art of team construction is putting players in situations that maximize their strengths and minimize their weaknesses. That means not asking Tristan to shoot 3's, and not asking Sexton to guard SGs, even if there's a 0.1% chance that they'll be much better at those things than evidence suggests.
Tristan has played for years in the NBA. So we can draw conclusions. Another horrible example to try to cover your assertion.

Sexton was 19 when he stepped into the NBA. You compared him to McCollum who came in with 4 years of college ball. That's a sloppy comparison because we don't have the data.

Is entirely possible he cannot defend the 2. Also entirely possible he can learn it. We can all assume that last year's staff did not help Sexton much on defense at the 1 or anywhere on the court.

We do know that Sexton has a wingspan slightly better than McCollum's and that may have increased since the combine last year.

But please don't use Tristan as a comparison to hoping better of a 20 year old with one season of NBA experience with a staff that clearly didn't coach D.

Let him play there this year and then we can make judgements. His stats don't give us enough info to draw conclusions.

Please stop comparing him to hoping Tristan can shoot threes or to a four year collegiate player and pretending that 20 year Olds are fully developed. Those are poor comparisons.

Maybe he won't develop. Maybe he will. It's okay to say we really don't have enough data and don't know. If the coaching staff wants to try him at the 2, let's see what happens and see if his defense improves in year two overall.
 

Answer @King Stannis please. All new members are required to list their measurements.

You are then allowed based on those measurements to choose:

1) New Cavs jersey
2) Other

Stannis will make a decision based on your choice whether to distribute the Cavs jersey or simply dispense with “other” anyways in front of a secret RCF tribunal which you will look in the eyes throughout the process.

Anyways...make with the measurements.
 
Tristan has played for years in the NBA. So we can draw conclusions. Another horrible example to try to cover your assertion.

Sexton was 19 when he stepped into the NBA. You compared him to McCollum who came in with 4 years of college ball. That's a sloppy comparison because we don't have the data.

Is entirely possible he cannot defend the 2. Also entirely possible he can learn it. We can all assume that last year's staff did not help Sexton much on defense at the 1 or anywhere on the court.

We do know that Sexton has a wingspan slightly better than McCollum's and that may have increased since the combine last year.

But please don't use Tristan as a comparison to hoping better of a 20 year old with one season of NBA experience with a staff that clearly didn't coach D.

Let him play there this year and then we can make judgements. His stats don't give us enough info to draw conclusions.

Please stop comparing him to hoping Tristan can shoot threes or to a four year collegiate player and pretending that 20 year Olds are fully developed. Those are poor comparisons.

Maybe he won't develop. Maybe he will. It's okay to say we really don't have enough data and don't know. If the coaching staff wants to try him at the 2, let's see what happens and see if his defense improves in year two overall.

I'd venture it's more common for a guy to add a 3-ball late in his career than it is for a 20-year-old to make the enormous defensive leap you're hoping for from Sexton. At age 20, players aren't amorphous blobs of potential that you can shape into whatever you want; they have clear strengths and weaknesses that almost always remain strengths and weaknesses throughout their careers.

For some guys like Sexton, those strengths and weaknesses are especially clear-cut: he's a good scorer and a bad defender. How valuable he is in his prime depends on precisely how good a scorer, and precisely how bad a defender he ends up being. But I'm pretty confident he's not going to flip the script and become Patrick Beverly just because Beilein told him to.
 
The issue is not just having most of your offense generated from your backcourt. If you just happen to have great backcourt players who usually generate most of the offense simply because they are so good, but you do have real offense elsewhere when needed, that's not a problem. The issue is having questionable backcourt defense and been too reliable on your backcourt for scoring. You become vulnerable on the defensive end, and more susceptible to being schemed against on the offensive end - particularly when defenses tighten up later in the playoffs and teams need legit offensive options at the other 3 positions.

Lillard and McCollum are a great offensive backcourt. They also gave up 110.9 PPP last year when on the floor together. Portland tried to compensate for their poor defense, and they did that by doing exactly what people are saying we should do here: "surround them with strong defenders on the wing." Well, that's exactly how you end up starting guys like Mo Harkless and Al-Farouq Aminu at the forward positions. Their defense is essential because of Portland's weakness in the backcourt, but they're basically like having two pseudo-Tristan Thompsons on the floor at the other end. You're playing 3 on 5 to some extent.

I'm not going to bitch about the draft pick because of BPA and all that. But I think trying to pound our two square pegs into one round hole as a long-term backcourt is a bad strategy.

One of those guys needs to be moved before next season.

I'd like them to just concentrate on acquiring and developing highly efficient scorers at every position including the bench. Develop and teach them to play good fundamental basketball and that includes things like rebounding well and playing good team defense. At the very least a team anywhere near that level offensively are a great regular season team and are difficult to defend in the playoffs because of so many offensive options. Then, who cares if the opponent with their one freak defensive wing shuts one of ours down. He can't guard them all.

If you have a really good and balanced offense there is also a bonus in that you kill some of the easy transition points for the other team by not being brick layers.
 
I'd venture it's more common for a guy to add a 3-ball late in his career than it is for a 20-year-old to make the enormous defensive leap you're hoping for from Sexton. At age 20, players aren't amorphous blobs of potential that you can shape into whatever you want; they have clear strengths and weaknesses that almost always remain strengths and weaknesses throughout their careers.

For some guys like Sexton, those strengths and weaknesses are especially clear-cut: he's a good scorer and a bad defender. How valuable he is in his prime depends on precisely how good a scorer, and precisely how bad a defender he ends up being. But I'm pretty confident he's not going to flip the script and become Patrick Beverly just because Beilein told him to.

I agree with this as a general point. However, Sexton has two qualities that distinguish him from the vast majority of NBA players:

1) He has a ridiculously hard work ethic;

2) He was way above average academically - a very smart kid.

We saw how those two things combined to remake both his three point shooting and his shot selection within a single season. Making such significant strides so quickly is highly unusual.

Because of that, I'm reluctant to apply to him the usual expectations for possible improvement. I really want to see how he looks defensively this season before concluding that he's doomed to be a below-average defender.
 
So full disclosure. I've lived in Orlando for over a decade and have caught a ton of Magic games on local TV and in person over the years, including last season.

Mo Bamba was terrible as a rookie. He was not good defensively at all despite his elite combination of length/mobility/athleticism. He has very little defensive awareness and even less grit and desire on that end.

The Magic's season completely turned around the moment Bamba got injured and missed the rest of the season. The gap in effectiveness between Bamba and some guy the Magic signed out of Europe for the minimum named Khem Birch was startlingly wide.

He's a low motor player who only seems to play hard when he thinks he's about to touch the ball offensively. I would want nothing to do with him on the Cavaliers.

Thanks for the insight. You can't teach motor which is why I want to wait and see what Sexton develops into. The other issue is awareness. Everybody gets stuck on purely physical attributes but if you have a clueless player that is half assing things to boot those combine measurements aren't going to matter.

I'm in the camp of wait and see at least a year or more on Sexton (waiting on more development if it happens from Osman too) and even more time for the rookies. But I do believe that players that end up being great offensively rarely are beasts defensively. It is just too much energy to play both sides of the floor that way. I'd be happy with great offense and mediocre defense.
 
I agree with this as a general point. However, Sexton has two qualities that distinguish him from the vast majority of NBA players:

1) He has a ridiculously hard work ethic;

2) He was way above average academically - a very smart kid.

We saw how those two things combined to remake both his three point shooting and his shot selection within a single season. Making such significant strides so quickly is highly unusual.

Because of that, I'm reluctant to apply to him the usual expectations for possible improvement. I really want to see how he looks defensively this season before concluding that he's doomed to be a below-average defender.

I'd argue that his big strides on offense were a product of great work ethic and phenomenal natural scoring talent. Not coincidentally, those are the things that made him a great prospect in the first place. On defense, try as I might, I don't see any talent in Sexton. I think his combination of smarts, plus physical tools, and work ethic could be enough that he won't stick out like a sore thumb after a few years. But there are some things you can't teach.
 
I agree with this as a general point. However, Sexton has two qualities that distinguish him from the vast majority of NBA players:

1) He has a ridiculously hard work ethic;

2) He was way above average academically - a very smart kid.

We saw how those two things combined to remake both his three point shooting and his shot selection within a single season. Making such significant strides so quickly is highly unusual.

Because of that, I'm reluctant to apply to him the usual expectations for possible improvement. I really want to see how he looks defensively this season before concluding that he's doomed to be a below-average defender.
Yeah, with someone like Sexton, it’s interesting.

We’ve talked at length before regarding how much he was tasked with carrying his teams in high school (Pebblebrook) and Alabama offensively. That burden led to defensive resting, like it or not.

We also talked about the fact that people with his smarts and work ethic don’t generally outright fail.

It’s very likely he hasn’t been taught defensive principles thoroughly in the past based on team building—and we know it didn’t happen last year. The whole team quit and checked out defensively.

He’s 6’2, but he’s a plus athlete and has that 6’7-6’8 wingspan. He’s been putting on muscle mass. It’s unlikely he becomes a stopper, but I do think it’s in the realm of possibilities that he holds his own defensively. He has every single tool present to be. There isn’t a reason he shouldn’t be, no, if he’s a willing learner?

Something as simple as defending the pick and roll—where he was absolutely abused last season—so much of that is coaching. It’s clear to me that he’s never been taught, and at points, rested on the defensive side of the ball generally his entire life.

Those are two things I feel confident will be changing under Beilein. Thus, if he fails defensively, it’s due to a lack of desire to commit to it. He has and will be given the understanding to succeed on that end of the floor. The rest is up to him.
 
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I'd argue that his big strides on offense were a product of great work ethic and phenomenal natural scoring talent. Not coincidentally, those are the things that made him a great prospect in the first place. On defense, try as I might, I don't see any talent in Sexton. I think his combination of smarts, plus physical tools, and work ethic could be enough that he won't stick out like a sore thumb after a few years. But there are some things you can't teach.

What exactly is it about him that makes you believe he can't be at least an average defender?
 
What exactly is it about him that makes you believe he can't be at least an average defender?

Doesn't naturally play with a lot of physicality on that end, and doesn't seem to have the right reflexes/instincts/nose for the ball to make defensive plays. Statistically, this shows up in his rebound/steal/block rates, and is further supported by his poor defensive on/off splits (both in college and in the NBA). To illustrate exactly how bad he was, Sexton and 34-year-old JJ Redick were the only players to average less than 1 steal+block per 100 possessions last year. There are plenty of other guys that were inexperienced, played in bad defensive systems, and/or didn't give great effort all the time, but none of them were so utterly unproductive. The only conclusion, IMO, is that Sexton lacks defensive talent to an extent that few other players do.

For comparison, Kyrie averaged 50% more boards, twice as many steals, and 5x as many blocks as a rookie. With him you could argue (and I did argue at the time) that maybe if he works hard and gives consistent effort he could be an average defender, because the awareness/reflexes/instincts appear to be there. I don't see that potential with Sexton, realistically.
 
Chris Fedor of Cleveland.com expects rookie Darius Garland to start in the backcourt next to Collin Sexton.
Coach John Beilein has already stated that the two will play together, and starting the pair seems like a smart decision. Fedor notes that the Cavs need to know what they have in Garland and Sexton, as well as whether they can succeed together or not. Garland will make for an attractive sleeper later in drafts.
 
Would love to see the wine and gold scrimmage this year.
Sexton v Garland
Knight v Clarkson
Cedi v Windler
Love v Nance
Zizic v TT
Bench:
Blossomgame v Porter
Wade v Henson

Just want to see sexton and garland go at it before they start together during the regular season.
 
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