Can Garland create separation consistently off-the-bounce next season?
Garland has again, had his struggles on many occasions throughout this season, and his assist-to-turnover ratio of 1.52 has been a bit underwhelming, and though he has led Cleveland with 3.9 assists per game, far too often, he’s forced in passes leading to live-ball turnovers.
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On the plus side, Garland, who only played in five games in his collegiate career at Vanderbilt due to a meniscus tear, has still shown nice handling ability and his vision and execution on wrap-around passes and in still on many occasions, lobs, has been nice to see.
Nonetheless, while Garland potentially may not have been himself just yet in terms of full capacity in relation to quickness, what is the key draw with Garland for Cleveland is what he could do down the road as a pull-up shooter and feasibly, initiator for others.
Garland having 12.3 points on 47.8 percent effective field goal shooting has been alright on the surface, but of course, the Cavs are hoping that’s just the tip of the iceberg for what he could develop into.
What’s coincided with that for me, is the burning question for Garland next season in that can he create separation more consistently off-the-bounce leading to quality offense for himself and others?
Though it’s not exceptional, him having an effective field goal shooting clip of 44.5 percent on pull-ups on a hefty 45.1 percent frequency, per NBA.com’s shot tracking data, is a positive.
Also, him hitting 39.2 percent on catch-and-shoot triple attempts indicates that he’ll help open up driving lanes for Collin Sexton, Porter, feasibly Cedi Osman and perhaps the mid-post area for Kevin Love (if he’s still with Cleveland down the road) and lobs/low-post touches for Larry Nance Jr. and possibly Andre Drummond. I’d imagine there’s a high possibility Drummond opts into his $28.8 million player option for next season, too, and he and Garland could play off each other better with more experience together.
To me, though, for Garland to eventually hit near his ceiling, which is seemingly very high as a pull-up shooter and playmaker with good feel and vision, he’ll need to generate separation off-the-bounce more consistently, and of course, find a way to be more competent on-ball defensively against opposing guards.
Perhaps with him being able to get stronger hopefully in the time leading up to next season (whenever that is) for finishing inside the paint and adding more explosive quickness, we could see Garland, who has shown he can change speeds pretty well, be able to generate more separation next season.
If that’s the case for him, I’d expect him to be more efficient and he’d be much more dangerous as a passer in being able to draw more help from opponents, and feasibly be able to take advantage more as a pick-and-roll ball-handler when bigs are switched out on to him.
Secondly, let’s take a look at the burning question for Windler next season.