4 Cleveland Cavaliers players who surprised this season

4 Cavs that surprised in 2021-22 – #1: Darius Garland

I don’t have anyone as necessarily the most surprising, flatout that is, for the Cavs from this season. The team was better than seemingly anybody would’ve anticipated thinking back to before the season, but first, I’ll mention Darius Garland, who was outstanding.

After an underwhelming rookie season, although it was after he was only able to play five games in college at Vanderbilt, Garland had a bounce-back Year 2. Then he had 17.4 points and 6.1 assists per outing, and leading into this season, many were optimistic he could take a third-year leap.

The leap definitely came, but I’m not sure people anticipated he’d have an All-Star season, and would play like one of the league’s best point guards, realistically that soon. That’s what occurred, as Garland repped the host team Cavs in his first All-Star Game, along with Jarrett Allen, and on the season, Garland had 21.7 points and 8.6 assists per contest.

He truly put it all together this season for the Wine and Gold, and while the team had its share of inconsistencies post-All-Star break, especially, Garland, along with Lauri Markkanen/Evan Mobley and say, Lamar Stevens, was a key bright spot.

Regardless of circumstances, Garland in post-All-Star play had 24.8 points and 10.0 assists per outing. And in the month of March, broke the Cavs record for point-assist double-doubles with 11, as pointed out by Cavs Notes.

Now, again, the season didn’t end how the team would’ve wanted, nor Cavaliers fans, and Garland had a rough shooting performance going 9-of-27 in the loss to the Hawks in the play-in last week. He was instrumental in the Cavaliers navigating their way back in the contest at the Nets in the play-in loss earlier in the past week, though, as he had 34 points on 13-of-24 shooting, and I do believe there’s still plenty to take from those experiences for Garland and other Cavs.

Anyhow, to me, even with there being plenty of hype surrounding Garland coming into his third season, I can’t say anybody would’ve outright predicted this sort of leap from him. Predicting outright he’d be an All-Star would’ve been tough to say.

Based on how he played this go-round, however, I could foresee this season being the first of many All-Star appearances for DG, conversely. His range, handle, playmaking abilities and vision were big-time this year, and he also took legit strides defensively, and his driving production and finishing took a big step forward, too.

The 22-year-old is a special player, and is the engine of this team’s offense looking onward.