The Whiteboard: A healthy Darius Garland raises the ceiling for Cleveland

Cleveland's first four games perfectly encapsulate its Darius Garland situation. This team can beat Toronto and Detroit with Garland not playing well and it can beat Washington with Garland playing pretty well, but if the Cavs want to beat teams like the Knicks — which they did last night, improving their record to 4-0 — it needs Garland to be the lightning-rod scorer and distributor that he was at Madison Square Garden on Monday.

Garland scored 34 points, shot 12 for 19 from the field including 5 for 8 from 3-point range, and added two steals and two blocks for good measure. It was his highest scoring output since December 2023 when he scored 36 versus Orlando.

Your thoughts, Donovan Mitchell?

Pertinent analysis, thank you.

Garland was instrumental in this win: of course, Cleveland would have lost without him, but it also would have lost if he was just an average point guard in this game. If he controlled the offense, made a few shots and merely didn't do anything detrimental the Cavs would be 3-1 right now. And that's how this team transforms with a fine Darius Garland and a great Darius Garland. With the former, it competes with teams like the Knicks. With the latter, it beats teams like the Knicks.

Donovan Mitchell is the unquestioned star of this team. But the 2024-25 Cleveland Cavaliers will go as far as Darius Garland goes. If he can once again become the player he was in 2021-22 (an All-Star, if you forgot!) and 2022-23 (should have been an All-Star) then these Cavs can absolutely compete with the New York, Philadelphia, Milwaukee (?) tier of the Eastern Conference.

Plus, we've only seen the full-strength Garland / Mitchell backcourt one time in the postseason. Granted, it didn't go particularly well — Cleveland lost to New York in five games —  but there seems to be a consensus around basketball that we know exactly what this roster can accomplish. That's silly! Darius Garland broke his jaw last year and clearly wasn't at full strength when he returned in February, and the team still won a playoff series. Realistically, this core has played one legitimate season together.

In a league of constant change, keeping together a team that's won one playoff series in two years might still feel like a pointless endeavor, but that really isn't the case in Cleveland. Finally at full strength with a (potentially) All-Star level Darius Garland, this Cavs team is right in the mix in the East, especially if Milwaukee bottoms out this season, Philadelphia remains injured and Orlando is still a year away from really being a problem. If all those remain true — through one week, they all look plausible — then who should Cleveland fear besides the Knicks and Celtics?

We've seen the floor of this team, and even the floor is pretty good. But we haven't seen All-Star, elite point guard Darius Garland with this version of the Cavs, and if we do get that in 2024-25, then there's perhaps a real playoff run coming in Cleveland.

Plus, that version of Darius Garland is really, really fun to watch, so let's hope he's back for selfish reasons. Just in case you forgot:

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NBA news roundup:

• Paolo Banchero. 50 OF 'EM! The Magic third-year star scored a career-high on Monday in Orlando's win against Indiana. He can (and will) get buckets in a variety of ways. What a player!

• Is everything okay in Milwaukee? The Bucks fell to 1-3 last night and that one win came against a Philadelphia team without Joel Embiid and Paul George. Damian Lillard and Giannis both look good, but the team isn't sharp at the moment.

• We don't want to jinx anything ... but Jalen Green looks really good. He scored 36 in a win versus San Antonio on Monday night.

Is there something cooking in Washington DC?

If you made it this far in the newsletter, thank you! Now you get a prize: you get to read about the Washington Wizards.

Okay, if you made it this far in the newsletter then you're a sicko (that's a compliment.)

The Wizards young core is a mystery, but maybe a fun mystery! Alex Sarr, the number two overall pick in this year's draft, will take a few years to develop into a formidable NBA center. But even a few games in it's pretty clear that he will achieve (at least) that much in his career. He's big — really big — and seems to have pretty good defensive instincts along with an intriguing skillset with the ball in his hands. He's shooting an egregious number of 3-pointers (5.3 per game, for some reason) but his promise is obvious.

Then there's Bub Carrington, who plays in the NBA like he's playing pickup ball with his friends and it rules. It also works! Carrington has hit 50 percent of his 3s thus far and went 3 for 4 (13 points total) in Washington's first win of the year on Monday.

Don't forget Bilal Coulibaly — please don't forget him — because pretty exciting things are coming from the 20 year-old. As a rookie in 2023-24, Coulibaly showed some promising signs but it was hard to grasp exactly where his strengths would be best served in the NBA — he does a little bit of everything from defending to passing to slashing to creating for himself. A few games into 2024, he's doing a little more of everything. In one game he dished out six assists, in another he scored 23 points, and in the third he put some serious clamps on Trae Young.

If you're not watching Wizards basketball right now... that's actually fine, but just know there are a few reasons to feel hopeful in DC. In a few years, at least. It's probably going to be rough until then, but still. Exciting things on the horizon!