Cavs: Early January has been Darius Garland’s best stretch of season thus far

Cleveland Cavaliers rookie guard Darius Garland has had his ups and downs, but he’s shown plenty of glimpses of what he could become. Thus far this season, it’s clear that his best stretch has been in early January, which was a particularly promising run.

This season for the Cleveland Cavaliers can be looked at as a year of development. Judging by their roster construction and record, you can see the direction that the team is going in.

The Cavs’ youth movement started last year when they selected Collin Sexton with the eighth overall pick in the 2018 NBA Draft and fired then-head coach Tyronn Lue just six games into the season, and then the team was led by what was seemingly an interim head coach in Larry Drew, who the team would mutually part ways with after the season.

The Cavaliers would end the 2018-19 season with a 19-63 record and went into the 2019 NBA Draft with the fifth overall pick. With this pick, they surprised many people and drafted Darius Garland out of Vanderbilt.

This selection shocked a lot of people as Sexton was the current point guard of the team and this move meant that he would be moved to the starting shooting guard, thus creating a small backcourt in the majority of games.

So far for Garland, his first season has been up and down and with the league being indefinitely suspended due to the NBA wanting to limit the spread of the novel coronavirus pandemic after Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert tested positive for it on March 11, and since, six other NBA players, it’s unclear at this point as to when we’ll see Garland playing for the Cavs again this season.

We may not eventually see this 2019-20 NBA season resume, either, and in terms of key reported updates involving how COVID-19 has impacted the league, you can view those here and also here.

More from King James Gospel

• 3 possible starting lineups for Cleveland Cavaliers in 2023-24
• The Cavaliers may have snagged a hidden gem in Craig Porter Jr.
• 4 players the Cavaliers should pursue in 2024 free agency
• 6 players Cavaliers might replace Jarrett Allen with by the trade deadline
• This stat is one to keep an eye on for Cavaliers’ Max Strus in years ahead

Anyway, in his first year, Garland has averaged 12.3 points on 40.1 percent shooting, including a 35.5 percent clip from three-point range, and 3.9 assists per game, according to NBA.com.

Though his statistics may be underwhelming, they do not tell the full story and Garland has had to overcome many hurdles to get to the point that he is at now.

Garland started his freshman year at Vanderbilt hot and in the five games he appeared in, he averaged 16.2 points on 53.7 percent shooting, including a 47.8 percent clip from three-point range, and 2.6 assists per game, as noted by Sports Reference.

His lone season was cut short due to a meniscus injury and due to precaution exercised by the Cavaliers, he also sat out of last year’s Summer League action.

After not playing competitive basketball for just about a year, Garland was then thrown to the wolves and has been playing 30.9 minutes per game against NBA talent thus far as a rookie, previously for prior Cleveland head coach John Beilein and now has still played a ton for now-Cavs head coach J.B. Bickerstaff.

Essentially, Garland was learning the game on the fly, so it is easy to see why he has struggled. Despite the struggles, the 20-year-old Garland has shown major flashes and we are going to look at his best stretch thus far this season in what was from mostly early and eventually into mid-January.

As his rookie year has gone on, Garland has seemingly hinted at how he’s been growing more comfortable operating out on the floor, and it looked as if he was gaining confidence in that aforementioned stretch.

To dive deeper into it, Garland’s best stretch was a 10-game span from January 2 to January 18. During this stretch, he averaged 15.7 points and 6.0 assists per game on 42.5 percent shooting from the field, 34.4 percent from three-point land and 91.3% from the free-throw line, as documented by Basketball Reference’s game log for him.

In that span, he had five games of at least 16 points and seven games of at least five assists. Looking at advanced statistics, he had three games with a true shooting rate of at least 56.4 percent, and to contextualize, as far as NBA teams this season, 56.4 percent true shooting has been considered average by Basketball Reference. This is a rookie, though, and it’s not like the Cavs as a team have been consistent for most of the season, as evidenced by them currently placing 23rd in true shooting rate, as shown by NBA.com.

Garland also had five games in that span above with an offensive rating of 110.4 (league average) and his usage rating was higher than 25.0 percent once during this stretch, which was against the LA Clippers (28.6 percent).

What impressed me most about Garland during this early-to-mid January stretch was his ability to work off the ball, his improved passing vision and IQ, and the clutch gene that he possessed. Looking at how well he performed off the ball, during this stretch, he was able to get catch-and-shoot chances and flashed his ability to knock those down a solid amount.

Plus, on the year to this point, Garland has hit 39.2 percent of his catch-and-shoot triples, according to NBA.com’s shot tracking data, which is encouraging for what has been mostly an on-ball contributor thus far.

Looking at his willingness to pass, during this stretch, he had an assist rate of 26.28 percent per game.

Looking at the entire NBA, an assist percentage of 26.28 would rank 38th of all qualified NBA players and is higher than the assist percentages of the Boston Celtics’ Kemba Walker, the Denver Nuggets’ Jamal Murray and the Chicago Bulls’ Zach LaVine.

Also, Garland’s ability to have a positive effect on a game for others such as Kevin Love, Sexton, Cedi Osman and Larry Nance Jr. despite his shot not falling shined bright during this mostly early January stretch. One game in particular that comes to mind is the Clippers game on January 14.

Despite the Cavs getting blown out and Garland shooting a poor five-of-16 from the field, he still had a career-high 10 assists. Another game where he didn’t shoot as well as one may have liked him to was the Charlotte Hornets game on January 2.

In this game, Garland shot five-of-12 from the field, which isn’t awful, really, but he only three-of-nine from deep. The key here, however, was that he had eight assists to only one turnover AND he was a plus-17 in a three-point loss, as shown by Basketball Reference.

Lastly, we will highlight the clutch shot-making that Garland displayed in the Cleveland Cavaliers’ win at Denver during this stretch in what was on January 11.

Garland’s clutch shots were the difference-maker in the game and halted a potential Nuggets’ comeback. In this game, he made a number of terrific floaters and ended up with 18 points and eight assists and in the last 3:11 of the fourth quarter, he had six points on three-of-four shooting, per ESPN.

The last bucket in this clip with the shot clock winding down below with 1:28 left put the Cavs up 107-101 and they closed it out from there in what was a really satisfying win.

All in all, Garland still has many things that he must look to correct and adjust during this offseason, and again, when the offseason is set to be is unsure at this point.

Let’s hope Garland, who had missed the Cavs’ last five games leading up to the NBA’s season suspension due to a left groin strain, gets fully recovered, too, along with Kevin Porter Jr., who missed the Cavs’ previous three games with him in the NBA’s concussion protocol.

After this mostly-early January stretch for Garland, though, he seemed to hit his rookie wall, due to fatigue/the flu, and ultimately has not found this type of success again for the rest of the season to this point.

Garland has shown enough to pique the interest of others and deserves to be the starting point guard of the Cleveland Cavaliers next season.

Despite criticism from others, Garland was set up to fail from the beginning and if this stretch is any indication of what he can become, then watch out.