Cavs: Reaction to Darius Garland’s 2K20 rating, and why Collin Sexton’s will improve from 2K19

NBA 2K released it’s initial ratings for the upcoming NBA 2K20 game, which is expected to be released September 6th, and it seemed relevant to touch on the rating of Cleveland Cavaliers guard Darius Garland, and why Collin Sexton’s rating should be improved from 2K19.

The ratings of some NBA players in the game NBA 2K20 were recently released, (per 2kratings.com), and while many in the NBA world/Twitterverse are talking about the ratings of the big-name superstars, I’ll give my take on how 2K rated one young player on the Cleveland Cavaliers, and why another’s rating should be improved from 2K19 when his comes out.

When you’re coming off a 19-63 season like the Cavs (per NBA.com), your roster isn’t going to be rated very high, and on top of that, Cleveland has a bunch of young players that likely won’t be rated too high, anyhow.

With all that considered, the most interesting thing about the Cavs in NBA 2K20 will be the ratings of Darius Garland and Collin Sexton.

According to 2kratings.com, Garland has a 77 rating, which would tie him with Atlanta Hawks rookie De’Andre Hunter for the fourth-highest rookie rating (NBA 2K has only released rookie ratings for the 2019 top five picks so far).

I think Garland is worthy of having a 78 rating, which would tie him with the New York Knicks’ RJ Barrett for the third-highest rookie rating and wouldn’t be far from the Memphis Grizzlies’ Ja Morant (who has a 79 rating, again, per 2kratings.com), who is the second-highest rated rookie and highest-rated rookie point guard.

With that said, it’s really hard to disagree in that way, as Garland may have franchise star potential, but we didn’t see him play much in college at Vanderbilt (just a five-game sample size, per Sports Reference), so in the NBA 2K world, this 77 rating seems very fair to start the season.

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Other Cleveland rookie draft picks Kevin Porter Jr. and Dylan Windler‘s 2K ratings are unknown, as unfortunately those ratings haven’t been released yet, but should soon be, as the game will be released September 6th, as was noted.

What seems pretty certain to me, though, in regards to ratings for Cleveland in 2K20 is that Sexton’s rating (77 lastly in 2K19, per 2kratings.com), will increase. After having a really nice rookie season which he ended on a tear after the All-Star break, posting 20.8 points per game on 58.5% true shooting (per NBA.com), Sexton’s rating should improve in 2K20.

A 77 rating at the time still seemed low with the improvement Sexton had after a good rookie season, and in particular, when you compare his rating to the other notable players in his 2018 draft class ending out last year. Again according to 2kratings.com, the players in Sexton’s draft class (as in the top ten picks) came out to be as follows the last go-round:

The Phoenix Suns Deandre Ayton was an 84, the Sacramento Kings’ Marvin Bagley was an 81, the Dallas Mavericks’ Luka Doncic was an 87, Memphis’ Jaren Jackson Jr. was an 80, Atlanta’s Trae Young was an 84, the Orlando Magic’s Mohamed Bamba was a 78, and the Chicago Bulls’ Wendell Carter Jr. was a 78, while the Knicks’ Kevin Knox was a 74, and the Suns’ Mikal Bridges was a 75.

In the top ten of the 2018 NBA Draft class, seven players were ranked ahead of him in the last 2K19 ratings, and ironically, eighth is where Sexton was drafted. Ayton, Doncic and Young were ranked ahead of Sexton (and deservedly so), and I can even understand Bagley and Jackson being ranked ahead of Sexton, but I don’t understand Bamba and Carter having higher ratings the last time out.

I think Carter will be an excellent NBA player with him being such a versatile big man who does a lot of things well, but as far as last year, Sexton clearly had a better rookie season and played in all 82 games (per NBA.com), while Carter only was active in 44 games (again, per NBA.com).

Much of the same can be said about Bamba. Bamba has tremendous upside, but he missed 35 games (again, per NBA.com) and even when he did play, he looked like a guy who is still very raw overall, particularly as a floor-spacer (as he shot just 30.8% from three-point range) and had a turnover rate of 13.7%, and played just 16.3 minutes per game when active, though his 1.4 blocks per game and a defensive box plus-minus of 3.1 (per Basketball Reference) showed he can provide a tremendous defensive impact.

Again Sexton only had a rating of 77, but in my opinion, after what he did as a rookie, should be deserving of a rating of 80-81, and in the last ratings, should have been graded better.

Obviously I think Sexton was rated low last and I believe his rating will improve when his 2K20 rating comes out, but I see the Garland rating as very fair. I would expect the ratings for Porter and Windler to be fairly reasonable as well.

The Cleveland Cavaliers won’t win a bunch of games in 2019-20, but I expect Sexton and Garland to play really well this year under the circumstances of where they are, at least in terms of offensive/scoring production.

Plus if they do have big production, it’ll be interesting to see how much their ratings will improve as 2K updates the rosters thought the season.