Cleveland Cavaliers: Complete grades for the 2019 NBA offseason

Selecting Darius Garland at No. 5 overall

Darius Garland is an NBA legacy, the son of journeyman 1980s-1990s point guard Winston Garland, and his ceiling appears to be very high.

After he was the 15th-ranked recruit in the country in 2018, Garland went to Vanderbilt University, where his freshman season was short-circuited by a torn meniscus in just his fifth collegiate game.

The injury didn’t hurt his draft stock and after the Cavaliers fell from No. 3 to No. 5 overall with some unlucky bounces in the draft lottery, Garland was there for Cleveland.

But here’s the rub: Garland plays the very same position, point guard, as does 2018 first-round pick Collin Sexton, the player taken with the pick acquired from the Boston Celtics in the Kyrie Irving deal two summers ago.

Both Sexton and Garland were high-usage players in college and neither did a lot of passing first.

As a rookie last season, Sexton had a 25.2 percent usage rate and chucked up 14.7 shots per game to go with just 3.0 assists a night. But Sexton, just a 33.6 percent deep shooter in his lone season at the University of Alabama, shot the 3-ball at a 40.2 percent clip.

In his five games at Vanderbilt, Garland took 54 shots — 23 from 3-point range — and recorded only 13 assists against 15 turnovers.

While the Cavaliers may envision Sexton and Garland as a 2.0 version of the Portland Trail Blazers‘ dynamic backcourt of Damian Lillard and CJ McCollum, it may end up more like a smaller replica — both Sexton and Garland are just 6’2”, so it could be shooting practice for opposing guards.

Garland was on the Cavaliers’ roster at the Las Vegas Summer League earlier this month but did not play. Per Chris Fedor of Cleveland.com, the Cavs didn’t want to rush Garland, who is reportedly fully recovered from his knee woes.

By the time the preseason opens, Garland will have gone nearly 10 months since his last competitive game, the Nov. 23 loss to Kent State during which he went down just two minutes into the game.

So he’ll have the rookie learning curve and a lot of rust to shake off, while either learning how to play off the ball or helping Sexton do the same.

This grade could go up if Garland and Sexton figure it out, but going small in the backcourt at a time when wings just keep getting bigger seems like a defensive disaster waiting to happen.

Grade: C+