Last season, Darius Garland had a bounce-back campaign, as compared to his rookie year, and he looked like a totally different player for the Cleveland Cavaliers.
In Year 1, because of a number of reasons, Garland was fairly underwhelming for Cleveland. He had 12.3 points and 3.9 assists per outing, and he was reportedly still not himself, in relation to his prior meniscus injury which cut short his lone collegiate season at Vanderbilt.
Fortunately, we saw what Garland could be when that wasn’t in the back of his mind in his second season, and the results followed. He had 17.4 points and 6.1 assists per contest, and the shiftiness, quickness, passing vision, and touch was on display often throughout his Year 2.
As a Cavs fan, his play then has me pumped to see how he can follow that up, and hopefully be a crucial reason why the team can take a noticeable step forward this season.
For Garland though, while him hitting 39.5 percent of his three-point attempts was a positive takeaway from last season, it is apparent that with his shooting abilities, including off movement and off-the-bounce, too, he does need to seek out more threes from here.
He attempted 4.9 per game last season, and both Garland and Collin Sexton do need to take more of those game-to-game for Cleveland. The team has reportedly been stressing for both to do so, in fairness, which is the right call, as one would attest.
In that realm, it was still meaningful that Garland in the Cavs Media Day on Monday did state that (and I’m not glossing over other things said from other guys) he’s been working on extending his range over the offseason. Here was more on that, via Evan Dammarell of Fear The Sword and the “Locked On Cavs” podcast, affiliated with WKYC.
Darius Garland said he's trying to extend his range and variety of his three-point repertoire since the Cavaliers want to take more threes this season.
— Evan Dammarell (@AmNotEvan) September 27, 2021
This was something that stood out to me from Media Day, also based on him hopefully building on his strong play from last season.
Cavs: This offseason work from Garland should pay dividends for him and the team in 2021-22.
I’m not discounting how Garland could very well look to take the next step as a primary playmaker for other guys this next season ahead.
In that area, I firmly believe that Ricky Rubio should leave a lasting impression on Garland, and aid him in his further development as a feeder to bigs, for one. Garland seems uber-excited to play with and learn from Rubio, too, as he talked about in his media availability, as noted by Spencer Davies of Basketballnews.com.
Circling back, however, with a crucial third season ahead for him and the club, it was notable that Garland touched on how he’s been trying to extend his range over the offseason.
With the Cavs as a team acknowledging at Media Day seemingly that they need to find ways to generate more threes and be more effective in that regard, it was a positive that Garland has been putting the work in to be able to hit from very deep. That’s been I’d think in both the off-the-bounce and off-catch/even off-movement realm, which would make him even tougher to account for.
Plus, I’d imagine that Sexton, who could potentially be signed via lucrative extension before this next season it appears, could be doing the same, too, for what it’s worth.
Anyway, from the Garland standpoint for Cleveland, I’d hope that these comments from him could feasibly lead to him being more aggressive as a shooter/scorer, of which I believe is a point of emphasis in Year 3 for him.
Furthermore, that mindset, if the extension of his range is shown throughout games, would only help him more and more as a driving presence and playmaker, I believe.