Cleveland Cavaliers guard Darius Garland should benefit from an extended offseason.
Darius Garland had his ups and downs in Year 1 for the Cleveland Cavaliers. I do give him somewhat of a pass, though, as Garland was reportedly not feeling like himself in 2019-20.
That was due to his prior meniscus tear that limited his lone collegiate season at Vanderbilt to only five games. And Garland coming into his past season with a minor foot ailment, dating back to training camp, didn’t aid him in the early going, either.
Garland did still show his share of flashes, though, and his feel/timing as a passer got better as the season wore on, which aided the likes of Collin Sexton, Kevin Love, Cedi Osman and Kevin Porter Jr., among others. In Garland’s last 26 games active, he had 5.1 assists per outing, which was more than his overall clip of 3.9 on the year.
Garland, even while he did appear a bit hesitant to really kick things into gear off-the-bounce at times, seemingly because of the past knee injury, did still show positive signs on-ball.
Garland’s floater and step back game was a bright spot, and frankly, for a rookie that was not fully trusting himself, him having an effective field goal shooting clip of 44.6 percent on pull-ups, per NBA.com’s shot tracking data, wasn’t too bad. Garland hit a respectable 39.2 percent of his catch-and-shoot three-point attempts, again, per NBA.com’s shot tracking data, as well.
Albeit Garland does need to show more for Cleveland in Year 2, but fortunately, an extended offseason, in regards to the novel coronavirus pandemic, will have likely aided him. Garland’s performance in the Cavs voluntary in-market bubble team workouts was reportedly impressive, as KJG’s Grant Puskar previously hit on, for one.
And on another positive note, according to a report from Cleveland.com’s Chris Fedor (subscription required), Garland toned up his frame and put in a ton of work on improving his body/frame and hired a personal chef/cleaned up his eating habits.
Garland has a reportedly improved/toned up frame and “growing shoulders” and per Fedor, an “impressive new technique.”
So in terms of a few areas where that should definitely pay off for him, what jumps out to me in that realm, then?
We’ll hit on two ways that can help Garland next season/looking onward for the Cavs here.
The first relates to settled offense.