The Cleveland Cavaliers are riding the roller coaster of emotions this season, with the breakouts of their young core and key wins coming alongside player absences and devastating injuries. Just this week Evan Mobley cleared health and safety protocols the same day that Darius Garland went in. Later that same day the Cavs went up 20 on the New Orleans Pelicans despite missing multiple key players, but then gave up the lead and potentially lost Ricky Rubio to a serious knee injury.
At the time of writing we are waiting for an update on the severity of Rubio’s injury, but at a minimum, he will be out for weeks. Add in the indeterminate amount of time that the team will be without Darius Garland, and the team suddenly has a major question mark at arguably basketball’s most important position.
The Cavs are down their two point guards with Darius Garland in health and safety protocols and Ricky Rubio suffering a knee injury. Who could replace them?
Head coach J.B. Bickerstaff should be getting the bulk of his rotation back from health and safety protocols over the next couple of days, but for some amount of time he will need to field a rotation without its three best ball-handlers: Garland, Rubio and Collin Sexton, already out for the season with a knee injury.
Who is a candidate to start while Garland is out? Let’s look at the slim number of candidates first. Then we’ll evaluate the roster for options to fill in the guard rotation off the bench. Finally, what is our prediction for how the starting lineup and rotation will look like without them?