One of the biggest factors that doubters of the Cleveland Cavaliers will point to when aiming to dismiss the team as a legitimate contender in 2025-26 is Darius Garland. Specifically, the narratives about Garland not being a playoff performer are highlighted as a key reason to distrust the Cavaliers.<\/p>\n
That argument has followed the star point guard for some quite some time. However, as pointed out by Danny Cunningham of the Locked on Cavs<\/a> podcast, it is one that hinges primarily on health.<\/p>\n Cunningham said, “If you want to build the argument that he’s not a postseason player, a lot of it hinges on injuries. … If he is healthy, I look forward to seeing whether or not he can refute that in the postseason, because I think that is a very important thing.”<\/p>\n As things stand, Garland is likely to miss the start<\/a> of the season due to the recovery from toe surgery<\/a> that was had earlier in the offseason. The Cavaliers must take things slow<\/a> with their point guard to allow him an opportunity to finally put to rest the narratives about his postseason play.<\/p>\n Healthy Darius Garland will make or break Cavaliers’ championship hopes<\/p>\n Garland’s playoff resume does look underwhelming at a quick glance. It is understandable why many have been unwilling to back down from the idea that his success does not carry over to the most important part of the NBA season.<\/p>\n In his career, Garland has averaged 17.3 points, 5.5 assists, 2.9 rebounds, and 1.0 steal in 29.6 minutes per game across three separate playoff campaigns. The efficiency is underwhelming, with the Cavaliers guard shooting 42.8 percent from the field and 34.3 percent from beyond the arc.<\/p>\n The problem with statistics is they can leave important context out. That is exactly the case with Garland here.<\/p>\n The two-time All-Star played some of the best basketball of his career in 2024-25. The 2025 NBA Playoffs should have been the proving ground for how much Garland had grown. Instead, it was once more a stage defined by injuries.<\/p>\n That pushes things back to the 2026 NBA Playoffs. The Cavaliers were able to be the best offense in basketball last season with Garland setting the table for everyone. Shifting away<\/a> from Donovan Mitchell’s brand of heliocentric offense allowed everyone to be best positioned to thrive.<\/p>\n It’s just a matter of seeing the version of Garland, who made everyone so successful, in the postseason. With 2025-26 being the best window of opportunity for him and the Cavaliers to prove themselves, Garland must deliver. If his story is defined by health once more, the conversation will quickly become uncomfortable<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of the biggest factors that doubters of the Cleveland Cavaliers will point to when aiming to dismiss…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":130031,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[557],"tags":[64,63,590,85],"class_list":{"0":"post-130030","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130030","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130030"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130030\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/130031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130030"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130030"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130030"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}