The Cleveland Cavaliers have one of the most dynamic backcourt combos in the league with the tandem of Darius Garland and Donovan Mitchell, but could a breakup of that Cavs duo be on the horizon?
Rumors sprouted following the Cavs’ second-round exit from the 2024 NBA Playoffs at the hands of the Boston Celtics that Garland wanted to get traded, though, the former Vanderbilt Commodores star point guard has already shut that idea down with a direct statement recently (via Chris Fedor of cleveland.com).
“I don’t want to be traded,” Garland told cleveland.com during an exclusive interview before exiting the arena late in the fourth quarter Sunday afternoon. “Those are just rumors.”
“It’s always good to see one of our guys get the money they deserve and know he’s going to be back with us for a while,” Garland said. “I was excited. I was excited for him.”
Darius Garland clears one distraction for the Cavs
© David Richard-USA TODAY Sports
Getting those words from Garland gets Cavs fans breathing out a collective sigh of relief. Cleveland had had a busy start to their offseason with the Cavs parting ways with JB Bickerstaff and finding his replacement in the form of former Brooklyn Nets head coach Kenny Atkinson and signing Mitchell to a huge three-year, 150.32 million maximum contract extension.
With those two big boxes checked out, the Cavaliers appeared to have another issue to deal with, as the Garland rumors swirled. But that shouldn’t be the case anymore, with Garland squashing the murmurs to let Cleveland move on from it and tackle other important matters, as the franchise looks to be better in the coming 2024-25 NBA season.
The 24-year-old Garland is under the Cavs’ control until the end of the 2027-28 NBA season as he signed a five-year, $197.23 million rookie contract extension with them in 2022. If Garland went the other way and openly said that he wanted the trade, the Cavaliers could get plenty of interest from the market given his age and years of club control. His contract isn’t cheap, but there must be several teams out there willing to explore a potential trade for Garland.
That being said, Garland isn’t coming off a particularly excellent campaign with the Cavaliers. He took a significant step back from a great 2022-23 season where he posted 7.6 win shares and 2.7 value above replacement player. Last season, he only had 2.7 win shares and just 0.5 value above replacement player while averaging 18.0 points, 2.7 rebounds, 6.5 assists, and shooting just 44.6 percent from the field — his worst since his first year in the league.
If the Cavs are to go much deeper in the playoffs than they did this year, they are going to need Garland to play at a higher level. In the 2024 NBA Playoffs, he averaged just 15.7 points on 42.7 percent shooting from the floor.
Social media reactions to Garland’s declaration
“I think that if Darius Garland is healthy for an entire season there’s a good case to be made that he and Donovan Mitchell could be one of the top guard combos in the Eastern Conference. The continuity is there as well as an added bonus,” said X (the social media platform formerly known as Twitter) user @LovelandSportsG.
“Good run it back healthy and prove em wrong 😤@dariusgarland22,” chimed in @c_boll10.
From @spomuse: “It was pretty obvious they were running it back once Mitchell extended”
