The 'hidden' leap

 Cavs fans aren't going to call this a 'hidden' leap after watching Darius go for 51 and 41 in two of his last 3 games but hear me out on this one.

So far this season Garland's production has been flat compared to last year despite two 40+ point games out of 9 (only 8 full).  Per 100 his scoring is up a bit from 30.3 pp/100 to 32.4 pp/100 on a bit lower efficiency of 55.9% vs 57.6% with a decline in his assist numbers (12.0 p/100 down to 10.7 p/100 and assist % down from 39.9 to 35.0).  If you just looked at his outside shooting numbers you might be convinced that if anything he is running hot at 42.3% from 3 against a 38.1% career mark. 

But you would be wrong.

Darius is actually getting unlucky- or has gotten much worse at basic basketball skills in the offseason, since the latter didn't happen its bad luck.  

Point 1:  Garland is hitting 77% of his free throws against a career mark of 86%, in total this is ~ 4.5 missed free throws total, or ~ 0.5 points a game.  Not a huge difference but enough to push him to a hair over 24 points a game.  

Point 2:  Darius cannot get a bucket at the rim.  Cleaning the glass has him at 29% at the rim which is way below his rookie year of 43% and even farther below his last two seasons at 57% (bball ref also has him at the lowest rate of his career within 3 ft, though the numbers differ a bit).  The gap in finishing here between this year and last is roughly 1.3 points per game off his performance the last two seasons.  That puts him at roughly 25.3 pp game in expectation on close to 60% TS.  

Point 3:  Garland's 3pt shooting against the last two years is running ~ 0.9 ppg higher than expected.  Bringing us back to ~24.4 ppg in expectation on slightly higher TS than last season.

Note:  Garland's mid range shooting this seasons is 47% vs last years 48% (2 years ago 41%) while taking a larger share of his midrangers inside of 10 ft.  This is pretty much a wash.

The more important statistics are of the 'I'm getting what I want, when I want' varieties.  Darius' free throw rate is up quite a bit, from 5 per 100 to 7.5 per 100 this season, that is a big leap, and its coming on the same rate of 2 pt attempts- 14.8 per 100- as last season.  That's a large jump, and CtG has him with a good sized increase in both shooting (6.3% of shots up to 7.8%) and on the floor fouls drawn (2.4% of plays up to 3.1%).  

Further out and Garland is taking more 3s in total (10.8 vs 9.3 per 100) and as a percentage of his shots (.42 vs .39) over last season.

Then there is the distinct possibility that between practice and better teammates his 3pt shooting actually is going to remain at >40% for a full season- well I'll put it this way, if his 3pt shooting remains above 40% and his FT% and finishing at the rim revert to his 3 year averages and his mid range stays at his 2 year average then the closest comp to a 23 year old Darius Garland is a 25 year old Steph Curry.  

That isn't MVP level Steph, but at 25 years old he was the best player on a 51 win team that went 7 games against a 57 win team in the first round.  Even if he plateaued from this level on that is still a perennial all-star level that could lead a second round playoff team most seasons, and flat shouldn't be your base line case because while I said a 23 year old Garland is comparing well with a 25 year old Steph, Darius is still 22 for a few more months while Curry turned 26 in that same season.