Cavs: How Darius Garland, Kevin Porter Jr. should improve, based on reports
By Dan Gilinsky
![Cleveland Cavaliers guard Darius Garland handles the ball. (Photo by Jim McIsaac/Getty Images) Cleveland Cavaliers guard Darius Garland handles the ball. (Photo by Jim McIsaac/Getty Images)](https://images2.minutemediacdn.com/image/upload/c_fill,w_720,ar_16:9,f_auto,q_auto,g_auto/shape/cover/sport/f241333dfea6c5ebe77d41d2a1ec27d5ddb7643a3ea048da18def48f8bb5d4a8.jpg)
Garland should be more capable/aggressive on-ball as a scorer for the Cleveland Cavaliers
Based on these reports of a better frame, for Garland, he should be improved on-ball as a scorer. Garland again only shot 40.1 percent in 2019-20, but hopefully, he should be more aggressive with him looking, as Fedor’s source put it, “more shifty.”
While his overall percentage as a shooter wasn’t great, Garland hitting 39.2 percent of his three-point attempts, per NBA.com’s shot tracking data, was solid.
And for a rookie that was not himself, Darius Garland having an effective field goal shooting clip of 44.6 percent on pull-ups wasn’t bad, and him hitting 46.7 percent on driving floaters, per NBA.com’s shooting data, was impressive. So was a 46.6 percent hit rate on step backs.
With Garland for next season for the Cleveland Cavaliers, though, with him completely ready to roll and trusting himself health-wise, that should lead to less indecision as a scorer in the pick-and-roll, which he seemed to have.
And having that shiftiness more should help him hopefully create more separation off-the-bounce, which he wasn’t able to do nearly often enough as a rookie, probably to a large degree, because of his previous meniscus injury.
So with year 2 in mind for Garland, based on these reports, we should see him more aggressive as a scorer throughout games and I’d imagine be able to have more free throw attempts (he only had 1.2 per game in year 1).
In turn, more on-ball capability in the scoring sense will only aid Garland as a passer, which would bode well for Sexton, Kevin Love, seemingly Andre Drummond, assuming he’s back by way of picking up his $28.8 million player option for next season, and others.
So how about Porter, then?