Cavs: 3 current players that could potentially be on Wall of Honor some day

Darius Garland

Now in this case, I’ll be as clear as I possibly can here: Garland is filled with potential. I know, Garland only appeared in five games in college at Vanderbilt due to a reported meniscus tear, but the talent of Garland as a scorer is there according to many pundits leading up to the draft.

Of course, injuries could be a major concern for Garland in his career with the Cleveland Cavaliers, and that could possibly hold him back to a degree, but he flashed again, major potential, as a scorer at Vanderbilt, as he had 16.2 points per game on 63.9% effective field goal shooting (including a 47.8% hit rate from three-point land, per Sports Reference), and that was with very limited spacing around him.

Garland’s ability to fill it up from the perimeter both off-the-dribble and off-the-catch is seemingly the reason why Cleveland is so excited about what he could do in coming years, and hopefully, the Cavs can eventually put good defensive pieces and better size consistently around Garland (and Sexton) to become a more relevant team at some point in the next few years.

So if Garland can mostly stay healthy for a long period of time for the Cavaliers and make a few All-Star teams, which the team seems to believe he can due to his scoring polish off-the-catch and especially as a ball-handler in the pick-and-roll and transition, along with him showing he can be a viable playmaker (he reportedly has much better vision and ability than his college playmaking splits of 15 turnovers to 13 assists, per Basketball, show), him potentially being an honoree on the Wall of Honor doesn’t seem completely farfetched.

For reference, ESPN NBA Draft analyst Mike Schmitz is a big fan of Garland, and it seems that Schmitz believes Garland has a very high ceiling.

You can understand why based on Schmitz’s analysis here.

This clip and other scouting reports, really, cause me to be in optimistic in believing that Garland can grow into Cleveland’s primary playmaker of the future.

Garland, in addition, seems to be a great kid and I would imagine would be involved in the community more and more the longer he’s in Cleveland, and just like Sexton, I would think the intangibles will be there for the currently 19-year-old Garland in his career with the Cavs, and much like Sexton, I could see Garland growing into one of the team’s primary leaders, too.