Tag: Darius

By his own estimate, Darius Garland is 20 pounds heavier than he was at this time a year ago.

“From when I got hit in the face, yeah,” Garland said.

At this time last season, Garland accompanied his Cleveland Cavaliers to Paris with his jaw wired shut, having broken it in a collision with the Boston Celtics’ Kristaps Porziņģis on Dec. 14, 2023. Being unable to eat solid foods for weeks, Garland said, he shed weight until he was 175 pounds. When he returned to action at the end of last January, among the several lasting impacts the injury had on his game was his physical appearance. He had trouble putting on the weight.

The 195-pound Garland of 2024-25 isn’t experiencing much trouble of any kind. He’s producing at an All-Star caliber, and when the people who likely hold Garland’s All-Star fate in their hands — the league’s 30 coaches who select the reserves — see him, one of the first things they notice is his size.

“He looks stronger; he looks stronger physically,” Indiana Pacers coach Rick Carlisle said. “That’s part of the maturing of a young veteran team. As these guys progress, as the team progresses, they learn about all of the things that are important to help with endurance. Clearly he’s become stronger, and it’s helped — it’s helped him at both ends of the floor. Watching him, he’s flying around out there.”

Garland, who turns 25 Sunday, has broader shoulders, a thicker chest and bigger legs than he’s shown in his first five seasons in the NBA, including his previous All-Star campaign of 2022. Casual observers say Garland has returned to his All-Star form, averaging 21.1 points and 6.8 assists for the team with the best record in the NBA. He’s scored more points per game and averaged more assists than he is currently, but it’s his shooting this season that sets him apart.

Through 41 games, Garland is shooting 49.8 percent from the field, and unfortunately for him, they don’t round up when it comes to membership in the 50-40-90 club — reserved for players shooting at least 50 percent from the field, 40 percent from 3-point range and 90 percent from the foul line.

If Garland can hold on to his pace as a 3-point and foul shooter (he’s shooting 42.7 percent from deep and 90.1 percent from the charity stripe), and make a fraction of one shot more per game, he’d become the 10th player — and second Cavalier — in NBA history to join the 50-40-90 club (nine players have done it a combined 14 times, including Mark Price in the 1988-89 season).

Garland also is shooting 65 percent from the field in clutch situations (when the score of a game is within 5 points inside of five minutes left) and perhaps doesn’t get as much credit for it because the Cavs are usually way up on their opponents. At 36-6, Cleveland has only played in 17 games close enough for “clutch” stats to be monitored this season.

His production, presence and skill on a team as good as Cleveland has his teammates talking up his All-Star status. Garland, it shouldn’t surprise you, wants to be, and thinks he should be, an All-Star, saying recently: “I’m trying to be humble as possible … but … yeah, I should be an All-Star.”

His case is likely up to the coaches. According to the most recent fan voting results released by the NBA, Garland was the eighth-highest vote-getter among Eastern Conference guards with 397,897 votes, more than 1 million votes behind his Cavs teammate Donovan Mitchell, who is second among East guards (three frontcourt players and two guards from each conference make it as “starters,” though this year’s All-Star format of a small tournament with three teams of NBA All-Stars means there will be five players on the court at the beginning of the tournament who were not voted in as “starters.”)

Starters are determined by a combination of votes by fans (50 percent), a media panel (25 percent) and the league’s players (25 percent), and they will be announced Thursday evening on TNT. It would be nothing short of stunning for Garland to make up ground and supplant either Mitchell, the Charlotte Hornets’ LaMelo Ball (who is about 500,000 ahead of Mitchell) or the five guards between Mitchell and Garland on fans’ ballots, all of whom could make an excellent case to be included in the annual February classic as a starter.

Reserves will be announced Jan. 30. For the coaches to take Garland over a talented group that also includes the Milwaukee Bucks’ Damian Lillard, the Philadelphia 76ers’ Tyrese Maxey, the Atlanta Hawks’ Trae Young, the New York Knicks’ Jalen Brunson and the Detroit Pistons’ Cade Cunningham, they will have to decide the impact the Cavs point guard makes in their star-studded lineup is worth more than the points his competition is scoring and the assists they’re dishing out.

Of all the front-runners to make it out of the East (throw Tyler Herro from the Miami Heat in there, too), only Garland and Mitchell share the backcourt with a teammate under serious All-Star consideration. Mitchell, who is averaging 23.3 points, 4.6 rebounds and 4.5 assists on 40 percent shooting from 3-point range, has comparable numbers to Garland but a much higher profile. Mitchell is a five-time All-Star with his own signature shoe with Adidas. Those kinds of things matter to a pool of fan voters who are not watching the Cavs play every night.

Donovan Mitchell and Darius Garland celebrate during the second half of a game against the Bucks in November. (Ken Blaze / Imagn Images)

Garland is very good, yes, but his numbers are, from 30,000 feet, comparable to Mitchell’s on a team that also has Evan Mobley and Jarrett Allen; Mobley’s averaging a career high 18.6 points, and Allen is giving the Cavs a double-double each night. Cleveland is on pace to win exactly 70 games. Only two other teams have done it in NBA history. Four starters are having notable seasons, and role players also are enjoying career campaigns (like Garland’s backup, Ty Jerome, who is the closest to Garland when it comes to 50-40-90 capabilities).

“I think it’d be a shame if all four of us weren’t there just because of the impact we’ve all had this season,” Mitchell said recently. “This isn’t just about one person. It’s a group thing.”

It would be far more of a shocker if Garland, his teammates and Cleveland’s coaches were saying something different, making a case that a Cavalier shouldn’t be an All-Star. After a recent home win, the longest-tenured veteran in Cleveland’s dressing room, Tristan Thompson, was shouting out all the top-tier guards Garland had bested in head-to-head matchups.

To paraphrase, Thompson said (basically): “You had Jamal Murray — (beat him). Golden State? (beat Steph Curry). They had [LaMelo] Ball, (beat him).

“Listen, I’ll fight for (Garland),” Thompson said. “I’ll be the bad guy. I’ll be Charles Oakley. I think Darius Garland should be (an All-Star), and everyone you guys put in front of him, he’s rang the bell and did what he had to do.”

In a blowout win over the Warriors on Dec. 30 in San Francisco, Garland easily bested Curry in a head-to-head matchup. Garland finished with 25 points and eight assists to Curry’s 11 points on 4-of-14 shooting. Earlier on Cleveland’s road trip, Murray had slightly more points and assists than Garland, but the Nuggets were beaten handily on a night when both guards played well. And on Jan. 5 in Cleveland, Garland outscored Ball by a point (25 to 24) in a 10-point win for the Cavs, though afterward the Cavs were making light of the Hornets sending a double-team at Garland so he couldn’t go one-on-one with Ball.

Earlier this season, Garland also scored 34 on the Knicks with Brunson on the court and 39 against the Bucks and Lillard. His high mark of 40 points came Jan. 9 against the Toronto Raptors.

“Great player, great control when he has the ball in his hands,” said Oklahoma City coach Mark Daigneault, who will coach one of the All-Star teams this year. “I think it’s impressive how he and Mitchell have not only coexisted but been able to thrive. I think that’s something Shai (Gilgeous-Alexander, a likely All-Star starter and potential NBA MVP) and Jalen (Williams) have done a great job of here, but I don’t think you can take that for granted. More isn’t always better, but they’ve done a great job of that.”

Last season ended with serious questions — outside the organization, anyway — of whether Garland and Mitchell could coexist. Few were talking about Garland’s struggles to regain his form after jaw surgery, and most were looking at Garland’s dip in overall production, especially in the playoffs, when he averaged just 15.7 points and shot 43 percent from the field.

What happened last season shouldn’t have any bearing on a player’s All-Star status the following years, but in a close race where stats aren’t necessarily a separator, and there’s another guard of similar build (Garland and Mitchell are close in height, but Mitchell is much stronger) on the same team who already has a higher profile, past perceptions can have an impact.

Cleveland coach Kenny Atkinson, in his first season as Cavs coach, has fostered an environment where Garland’s playing better, Mitchell is thrilled to play in an offense where he isn’t relied on as heavily, and the team gets consistent scoring from at least four players most of the time.

It’s a formula that may, for now, make Garland’s path back to the All-Star Game tougher because it’s harder for him to stand out. But if the Cavs turn this regular-season success into a deep playoff run, with Garland as a catalyst, voters in the future will remember his name and believe in what he is capable of, which he’s shown night in and night out to those who watch him play.

“I was thinking about him today on my walk; it was like he reminds me of Steph,” Atkinson said last week, comparing Garland to Curry. “He (Garland) can break — you know Steph can break anybody down. When you have elite shooting and you have the dribble-move game or whatever, the creation part — that’s unique. And you can shoot the off-the-dribble 3. There’s very, very few guys in this league, there’s two, three of them in the league. I just think he’s unique.

“I keep talking about his growth, much like Steph was, (Garland) just keep getting stronger,” Atkinson continued. “It’s really his physical development and being able to sustain the punishment of the playoffs, a seven-game playoff series. Teams picking on him defensively. Even defensively, he’s been great this year. We switch with him now, we don’t play the coverage game or show game with him.”

(Top photo: Nick Cammett / Getty Images)