Darius Garland’s breakout season, and how it impacts the Cavs’ future

Trae Garland? Or Darius Young?

Damian Lillard was a pretty popular player comparison for Darius Garland before the 2019 NBA Draft, but I see him as more of a Trae Young spinoff than anything resembling Lillard.

Trae Young is probably the best in the NBA at making quick reads in the paint that determine whether or not he’ll lob the alley-oop to a rolling big or take his deadly floater, and you can see a lot of those same plays in Garland’s game too. Garland isn’t quite on that same level, but he’s certainly one of the best in the NBA at weaponizing his floater to put opposing bigs in an impossible spot:

A Trae Young comparison is pretty unfair to anyone with how well he’s been playing, but I say it to make the point that Garland is special offensively. I think there were probably some people that doubted Garland’s ability to be a lead creator on a winning team, but those doubts should be disappearing more and more with every game the Cavs play.