Whiteboard: Healthy Darius Garland raises ceiling for Cleveland – FanSided

Cleveland’s first four games perfectly encapsulate the Darius Garland situation. This team can beat Toronto and Detroit with Garland not playing well, and they can beat Washington with Garland quite a lot fine, but if the Cavs want to beat teams like the Knicks — which they did last night, improving to 4-0 — Garland needs to be the lightning-quick scorer and distributor he was at Madison Square Garden on Monday.

Garland scored 34 points, shot 12-for-19 from the field, including 5-for-8 from 3-point range, and added two steals and two blocks for good measure. It was his highest output since December 2023, when he scored 36 against Orlando.

Your thoughts, Donovan Mitchell?

Relevant analysis, thanks.

Garland played a big part in that win: sure, Cleveland would have lost without him, but they also would have lost if he was just an average point guard in this game. If he controlled the offense, hit some shots and just didn’t do anything harmful, the Cavs would be 3-1 right now. And that’s how this team transformed with fine Darius Garland and great Darius Garland. The former competes with teams like the Knicks. With the last one, it hit teams like the Knicks.

Donovan Mitchell is the undisputed star of this team. But the 2024-25 Cleveland Cavaliers will only go as far as Darius Garland. If he can get back to being the player he was in 2021-22 (an All-Star, in case you forgot!) and 2022-23 (should have been an All-Star), then these Cavs can absolutely compete with New York, Philly , level Milwaukee (?) in the Eastern Conference.

Also, we’ve only seen the full force of Garland / Mitchell in the backfield once in the postseason. Sure, it didn’t go particularly well — Cleveland lost to New York in five games — but there seems to be a consensus around basketball that we know exactly what this roster can accomplish. This is stupid! Darius Garland broke his jaw last year and was clearly not at full strength when he returned in February, and the team still won a playoff series. Realistically, this core has played one legitimate season together.

In a league of constant change, keeping together a team that has won one playoff series in two years may still seem like a no-brainer, but that really isn’t the case in Cleveland. Finally at full strength with (potentially) All-Star-level Darius Garland, this Cavs team is right in the mix in the East, especially if Milwaukee stays at the bottom this season, Philadelphia stays injured, and Orlando is still a year from indeed as a problem. If all of those hold true — after a week, they all seem plausible — then who does Cleveland have to fear but the Knicks and Celtics?

We’ve seen the floor of this team, and even the floor is pretty good. But we haven’t seen All-Star elite point guard Darius Garland with him this version of the Cavs, and if we get him in 2024-25, then maybe there will be a real playoff game in Cleveland.

Plus, this version of Darius Garland is really, really fun to watch, so let’s hope he’s back for selfish reasons. Just in case you forgot:

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If you made it this far in the newsletter, thank you! Now you get a reward: you can read about the Washington Wizards.

Good if you made it this far down the ballot, then you’re sick (that’s a compliment.)

The young core of the Wizards is a mystery, but maybe a fun mystery! Alex Sarr, the number two pick in this year’s draft, will take several years to develop into a formidable NBA center. But even after a few games, it’s pretty clear that he’ll accomplish (at least) that much in his career. He’s big – really big – and seems to have pretty good defensive instincts along with an intriguing set of skills with the ball in his hands. He’s shooting a great number of 3-pointers (5.3 per game, for some reason), but his promise is obvious.

Then there’s Bub Carrington who plays in the NBA like he plays with his friends and that rules. It also works! Carrington has hit 50 percent of his 3-pointers so far and went 3-for-4 (13 total points) in Washington’s first win of the year on Monday.

Don’t forget Bilal Coulibaly – please don’t forget it — because there’s some pretty exciting stuff coming from the 20-year-old. As a rookie in 2023-24, Koulibaly showed some promising signs, but it was hard to know exactly where his strengths would be best served in the NBA — he does a little bit of everything from defense to passing to shooting to creating for yourself. A few games until 2024, he does little more of everything. In one game he had six assists, in another he scored 23 points, and in the third he seriously hit Trae Young.

If you’re not watching Wizards basketball right now… that’s actually okay, but just know that there are a few reasons to feel hopeful in DC. At least in a few years. It will probably be difficult until then, but still. Exciting things on the horizon!