Cleveland Cavaliers: Darius Garland season preview

Defense

Garland has average size for an NBA point guard, standing at 6’3″. His height won’t affect him when defending opposing guards, but it will come in to play if the Cavaliers plan to switch through screens. Garland is not tall or strong enough to defend anyone outside of his position.

This will hurt the Cavaliers. In today’s NBA, having versatility is a must. It will be tough for the Cavs to cover up for Garland and Collin Sexton as both are going to struggle against taller opponents.

To make matters worse, Garland isn’t a supreme athlete. He is quick, but he isn’t going to explode laterally like other guards will. This is going to cause problems for Garland when he faces more athletic guards such as Russell Westbrook and Damian Lillard.

As for his team defense, that needs some work too. There is a steep learning curve for rookies when it comes to playing help defense. The NBA is played at a faster pace than any other league and it takes some adjustments for these young guys to learn the game. Garland will not be an exception to this rule.

It doesn’t help that Garland is joining perhaps the worst defensive team of the century. The Cavaliers posted one of the NBA’s worst defensive ratings in history last season and haven’t done much to improve in this area.

For his rookie season, we can expect Garland to be an awful defender. All we can hope is that as the Cavaliers begin adding more talent on this end of the floor, Garland will improve as well.