Splitting up Darius Garland and Collin Sexton might be a necessity for the Cleveland Cavaliers. Here are four ways they can do it.
I know fans of the Cleveland Cavaliers don’t want to hear this – but splitting up Collin Sexton and Darius Garland is something that might need to happen at some point in the future. As exciting as the two guards could one day become, this pairing just isn’t working out thus far.
Last season, Garland and Sexton played over 1,200 minutes together. Compared to other two-man lineups to share the floor for at least 1,000 minutes this season, only one pairing ranked lower than them in Defensive Rating and just 15 duos posted a worse Offensive Rating (three of which featured either Garland or Sexton). As for Net Rating, Sexton or Garland appeared in three of the bottom-four pairings this year, with the two combining as the fourth-worst pairing in the entire league.
The eye-test validates just about everything the advanced analytics are telling us here. Sexton and Garland are painfully short – only slightly taller than the miniature backcourt of Kyle Lowry and Fred VanVleet, who stand as the smallest starting duo in the NBA. This makes Garland/Sexton incredibly vulnerable on defense – where their individual struggles are on full display when playing together.
It doesn’t help that neither has made much progress as a playmaker. While Sexton and Garland both boosted their assist numbers towards the end of last season – they still ranked towards the bottom in terms of other starting guards. It’s likely that their ball-dominant tendencies are holding each other back – and it might be better for everyone if these two are split up.
While some suggest moving Sexton to the bench, a more extreme option would be to trade one of these young prospects for more assets. Using one of them as trade bait to build around the other could be the easiest way for Cleveland to become competitive again.