Sam Vecenie of The Athletic came out with his list of the top young players in the league. Darius checks in at #30. Sam seems to really like him.
"30. Darius Garland | 6-1 guard, 21 years old | Cleveland Cavaliers | Contract: 3 years, $22.8 million, last year team option | PR: 49
Garland makes a real jump up the rankings, as he looks a lot more comfortable dealing with physical opposing guards. He was terrific in the team’s first six games, wheeling and dealing from the point guard position and putting Collin Sexton into successful positions while also knowing how and when to attack on his own. He averaged 17 points and six assists in those games, utilizing the pull-up and shooting prowess that made him so lethal as a five-star prospect in high school and in his four games at Vanderbilt. Those numbers have largely stayed steady over the course of the season, as he’s up at 16 points and five assists.
That shooting ability is what makes Garland a very interesting prospect long-term. Because of his experience at lower levels playing as an off-guard, Garland is terrific with his foot prep off the catch and does a great job hitting catch-and-shoot shots off movement. The significant reason that a Garland and Sexton pairing works on offense is because both of them have turned into extremely high-level shooters who are willing to play both on and away from the ball. Oftentimes, that results in Garland bringing the ball up and passing it off to Sexton and letting him execute the primary action. He’s been unselfish, knowing that if he keeps moving, he should be able to get it back at some point — especially on this roster with a passing big like Larry Nance Jr. Overall, Garland has made about 40 percent of his 3s this season, a number I think is actually close to his true talent level if he’s going to get a significant number of looks off the catch.
The key point, though, is that he’s still getting better as a passer. Early in his prep career and at Vanderbilt, I didn’t really love Garland’s vision and passing ability. Having come up as a scoring guard, I don’t think he’d quite gotten down all of the reads he needed to be able to make. However, as the son of a former NBA point guard in Winston Garland, those reads seem to have come to him over the course of the calendar 2020 and 2021 years as well as Cleveland could have hoped. He does get stuck up in the air at times without a plan, but for the most part, he’s taken to the lead guard position well as a passer for someone whose primary skill will always be more of a scorer. His handle is very technically sound, with a great little series of inside-out dribbles into hesitation crossovers to get into the paint followed by terrific work with his body to protect the ball and keep the advantage as guards try to recover onto him out of ball screens. He’s improved his ability to hit those cross-corner kick-out reads to open 3-point shooters, and he’s good at lowering his eyes to hit the dump-off passes to the Cavs’ variety of big men.
The two main concerns that hold back Garland remain the two that worried me in the draft process. First, he’s a terrible finisher at the rim. This year, he’s made 30 of 69 attempts at the basket, which is a well below average mark of 43 percent. He’s short, doesn’t have a ton of vertical pop and generally has to catch opposing bigs off guard. The good news is that Garland is attempting to help himself here by adding a runner/floater that gives him more of an ability to use his natural touch. Again, he’s made about 46 percent last season, similar to his number last year. He needs that number around 45 to 50 percent and needs to be even more willing to pull the trigger on it as opposed to trying to get all the way to the rim. It’s a tough needle to thread. He already takes more floaters than he does shots at the rim, but it’s just really hard to be so efficient on those floaters that you can get away from the rim.
Second, I’m still concerned about a Sexton-Garland backcourt defensively. Both Sexton and Garland have really improved their defensive effort this season, as coach J.B. Bickerstaff has really gotten the team in general to give great defensive effort. Those two fight over screens and really try to recover in ball-screen coverages. But in the playoffs, teams are really just going to try to hammer mismatches with them. After a strong start on that end of the floor, the Cavaliers have completely fallen off of a cliff since Nance, a genuine All-Defense candidate, got hurt. Without his help defense reactivity where he’s all over the place recovering onto guys who get beaten, drives against Garland and Sexton have turned into more scoring options. The team will need to figure out long-term if Garland and Sexton can play together, and then if not, which one will it choose? Regardless, Garland looks like a real starting NBA point guard due to his ability to dribble, pass and shoot at plus NBA levels. The question is simply how high the ceiling is as largely a perimeter player if he also can’t get to where he needs to on defense."
Sam makes a good point in that Garland and Sexton are better when they have a player like Nance covering up for them defensively. Allen might fall into that category as well. If the Cavs can draft another tall, agile wing with defensive skills on the perimeter like Nance (only with more offense) it would do even more to minimize the defensive problems of the smaller guards.
