Cleveland Cavaliers teammates have high expectations for young guard duo Collin Sexton and Darius Garland. It will be difficult to match those expectations this season.
As has been documented previously here at KJG, the Cleveland Cavaliers used back to back first-round picks on point guards. In the 2018 NBA Draft, they selected University of Alabama point guard Collin Sexton with the eighth pick and in the 2019 NBA Draft, they selected Vanderbilt University’s Darius Garland with the fifth pick.
The selection of Garland, while correct on paper as he was the most talented player on the board, is a head-scratcher as far as team fit. Cavs’ veteran big man Tristan Thompson laid out the plan and expectations, per Bleacher Report’s Greg Swartz.
Tristan Thompson on a Darius Garland/Collin Sexton backcourt: "We're trying to build a CJ-Dame situation."
— Greg Swartz (@GregSwartzBR) September 30, 2019
“A CJ-Dame situation” refers to the Portland Trail Blazers guard duo of Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum.
These are very lofty expectations that Thompson is thrusting on the young guard duo.
Lillard, according to Basketball-Reference, is a four-time All-Star. He was named to the All-NBA first team last season, and he had per-game averages of 25.8 points, 6.9 assists, and 4.6 rebounds.
While we shouldn’t compare Sexton’s rookie season or Garland as a player prior to his rookie season begins to Lillard’s seventh NBA season, we can look at Lillard’s rookie season to get a little bit of a sense of the comparison between him and Sexton.
As a rookie, per Basketball-Reference, Lillard had per-game averages of 19 points, 6.5 assists, and 3.1 rebounds.
Sexton, per Basketball-Reference, averaged 16.7 points, 3 assists, and 2.9 rebounds.
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Another thing that should be noted is Lillard came into the league a little more polished than Sexton or Garland as he played four years at Weber State University. It may take a little more time for either Sexton or Garland to acclimate themselves to the NBA game than it did Lillard.
Last season showed that to be the case with Sexton. He struggled through the first few months of the season but really turned it on post-All-Star break. Over the final 23 games of the regular season last year, per Basketball-Reference, Sexton averaged 20.6 points per game while shooting 47.7% from the floor on 16.9 attempts per game.
Sexton also showed the ability to take over a game, as Lillard often does, against quality competition. Late last season, the Cavs fell in a massive second-half hole to the defending world champion Golden State Warriors and Sexton nearly led them back to a win after posting 27 points and four assists.
Recreating Lillard’s massive impact is only half of the insanely difficult task. While he doesn’t have the accolades to this point that Lillard has, CJ McCollum has shown in his career that he is also capable of taking over games, as he did in the Western Conference Semi-Finals against the Denver Nuggets.
Highlights of McCollum’s incredible 37-point performance in Game 7, courtesy of ESPN.
McCollum, like Lillard, came into the league as a very polished player after four fantastic seasons at Lehigh University.
His success wasn’t as immediate as Lillard’s however. Over the course of an injury-riddled first two seasons in the NBA, McCollum appeared in 100 of 182 games and averaged only 6.2 points per game per Basketball-Reference.
However, in years three through six, McCollum has appeared in 311 of 328 possible games and has averaged 21.6 points per game, according to Basketball-Reference.
We have a little bit of evidence that Collin Sexton can be a successful scorer in the NBA, for Darius Garland, injuries could be a concern for him.
He only appeared in five games at Vanderbilt due to a torn meniscus and he is already being held out of training camp due to right foot soreness according to Chris Fedor.
Garland has the natural ability to be a high-level scorer in the NBA. He has elite ball-handling ability, elite mid-range shooting, and elite three-point shooting potential.
Setting high expectations can be impossible for some players to overcome and it can bring out the best in other players.
The mental makeup of Collin Sexton and Darius Garland will be a major key in determining whether they can meet the lofty expectations that Tristan Thompson has placed on them.
For Cavaliers’ fans and their front office, it could be the start of a rapid rebuild if they can come anywhere near the production of that of Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum.