5 unexpected takeaways from the Cavs’ first week

Cavs’ first week: MIssing Darius Garland

Darius Garland averaged 35.7 minutes per game for the Cleveland Cavaliers last season, at times carrying the entire offense on his back. He averaged 21.7 points even after a slow start, dished out 8.6 assists per game and essentially made more 3-pointers per game than the other starters combined. Even with the addition of Donovan Mitchell, the Cavs were sure to have offensive trouble if Garland were to miss any amount of time, especially before Ricky Rubio was back healthy.

That has definitively not been the case, as the Cavs are positively humming even without their All-Star floor general. Losing Garland was certainly a surprise; he’s not particularly injury-prone, and no team expects its star players to suddenly go down (the Lakers and Anthony Davis being the exception; he just sprained his shoulder reading this sentence). Losing Garland 13 minutes into the season and for a week or more was disappointing, but it hasn’t led to disaster.

Garland will hopefully be back soon, and the nature of his injury (a cut on the inside of his eyelid) he can keep up his conditioning. Once he is ready to go he will join a team full of unexpected surprises, many of them good, and he will help this team reach the heights it is aiming for.