NBA: Top 10 candidates for 2019-20 NBA Rookie of the Year

The Cleveland Cavaliers will lead the NBA in young 6’2″ point guards this season after taking Vanderbilt’s Darius Garland with the fifth overall pick just one year removed from taking Collin Sexton at No. 8.

The plan is to have Sexton and Garland play together in the backcourt — and given the other guard options in Cleveland, it’s hard to blame them. Defensively, that could spell some trouble for the Cavs, who will be woefully undersized in the backcourt almost every night.

Garland is an NBA legacy, the son of former journeyman point guard Winston Garland, and before tearing his meniscus in just his fifth collegiate game as a freshman was on pace to have a solid year.

As it was, Garland averaged 16.2 points, 3.8 rebounds and 2.6 assists in 27.8 minutes per game, shooting 53.7 percent overall and was 11-for-23 (47.8 percent) from long range.

It’s likely his assist numbers would have improved as the season progressed and that his unsightly 0.87-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio would have similarly normalized.

Garland was held out of Summer League by the Cavaliers, though he is expected to be ready before camp, per Chris Fedor of cleveland.com.

On an oddly constructed Cavaliers roster, Garland will get the minutes to accumulate numbers — much the way Sexton did last season — and given that the Cavs might have to score 135 points a night to stay in touch with their opponents, those numbers might end up being pretty gaudy.

The legacy of previous Rookie of the Year winners in Cleveland is impressive — Kyrie Irving in 2010-11 and LeBron James before that in 2003-04.