According to NBA insider Jake Fischer, there are many teams around the league who will rank Cleveland Cavaliers guard Darius Garland over Atlanta Hawks guard Trae Young in trade discussions this offseason.
“I can tell ya, a lot of teams will have Darius Garland ranked above Trae Young on their board of wish lists just in the fact that he has been someone who’s even been agreeable to shift his role a bit depending on what type of players are coming in,” Fischer said. “And with Trae Young, you are, of course, trading for someone, in theory, who only wants to operate out of high pick-and-roll action play after play after play. So, put Darius Garland on the bingo card of potential All-Stars to be considered up for grabs this summer.”
Garland has seemingly sacrificed quite a bit from a scoring standpoint while playing alongside Donovan Mitchell over the past two seasons. In the 2021-22 season — Garland’s last season on the Cavaliers prior to the arrival of Mitchell — he served as the straw that stirred the drink for Cleveland’s offense.
Across 68 games played during the regular season, the now 24-year-old led the team in both points (21.7) and assists (8.6) per contest on impressive efficiency, considering he shot 46.2 percent from the field and 38.3 percent from deep.
The point guard also earned the only All-Star appearance of his NBA career thus far that season and finished third in Most Improved Player voting behind Dejounte Murray and Ja Morant.
Garland’s scoring average and usage looked a bit different in the 2023-24 regular season compared to what they were at in the season before Mitchell was dealt to the Cavaliers. For example, Garland averaged 18.0 points (his fewest since the 2020-21 campaign) and 14.8 shot attempts per contest (his fewest since his rookie season) in his fifth season in Cleveland.
Young, on the other hand, has arguably served as the primary scoring option for the entirety of his career with the Hawks. He hasn’t averaged fewer than 25 points per game since his rookie season and recently averaged 25.7 points per contest in 54 appearances with Atlanta during the 2023-24 regular season.
But ever since Young led the Hawks to an appearance in the 2021 Eastern Conference Finals, Atlanta hasn’t so much as won a single playoff series, and the team didn’t even qualify for the 2024 NBA Playoffs after falling to the Chicago Bulls in the play-in tournament by a final score of 131-116.
One can make an argument that Young is a more talented player than Garland at this juncture, but the latter has demonstrated more of a willingness to adapt his game to fit the personnel on his team.
