While there’s no doubt that Cleveland Cavaliers guard Darius Garland and big man Evan Mobley are All-Star caliber players, they have yet to prove that they can be some of the best players on a championship team in the NBA. Cleveland hasn’t made it past the second round of the playoffs with Garland and Mobley flanking star Donovan Mitchell.
Cleveland.com’s Chris Fedor made some remarks about Garland and Mobley back in the offseason in which he highlighted questions about each player’s readiness to take certain steps, and he claimed during a recent podcast that some folks within the Cavs organization pushed back on what he said.
“I think people take comments from people on a podcast or things that they read and they kind of just — they determine on their own what the person is trying to say, rather than taking what the person actually says,” Fedor began. “You know what I mean?
“And I would just like to point out that I took a lot of crap from people inside the Cavs organization and from fans for some comments that I made this offseason on the podcast about, there are questions about the readiness of Evan Mobley and the readiness of Darius Garland, and this is highlighting why.
“It’s not a victory lap or anything like that, but now that we’re into the season, you’re seeing evidence and you’re seeing signs of what I was talking about and what other people have been talking about as well.
“Readiness to be a star in a playoff environment, readiness to be a second option on a team with championship aspirations — not everybody’s ready for that, and that’s okay. The unfortunate thing from the Cavs’ perspective is that they need Evan to be ready for that. Otherwise, they’re not winning a championship. That’s the bottom line.”
The Cavaliers have hit some bumps at times to start to the 2025-26 regular season, and Garland and Mobley are big reasons why that is. First off, Garland has spent a majority of the campaign thus far on the shelf as he’s navigated a pesky toe injury.
In the three games he’s played this season, he really hasn’t looked like his usual, dominant self on offense either. He’s averaged just 13.0 points per game while shooting 33.3 percent from the field in his seventh NBA season.
As for Mobley, at the very least, he’s been a whole lot more available than Garland to kick off the campaign. Of the Cavaliers’ 16 games played, he’s taken the floor in all but one of them, but he also hasn’t shown noticeable improvement following his breakout 2024-25 season. He has struggled to be efficient this season and is carrying career-lows in field-goal percentage and free-throw percentage.
With Mobley and Garland underperforming, the Cavaliers have already lost six games this season after they started out the 2024-25 campaign 15-0. They’re also just the No. 4 seed in the Eastern Conference behind the likes of the Detroit Pistons, Toronto Raptors and New York Knicks.
Hopefully, Garland will be back on the floor soon and Mobley will get back to scoring the ball efficiently in the Cavaliers’ upcoming games. Their next bout is scheduled for Friday night against an Indiana Pacers team that’s been ravaged by injuries this season.
