CLEVELAND, Ohio — In this episode of the Wine and Gold Talk podcast, Ethan Sands and Jimmy Watkins discuss the early careers of Kyrie Irving and Darius Garland, focusing on the impact of playing alongside stars like LeBron James and Donovan Mitchell.
Takeaways:
Kyrie Irving acknowledged having bad habits early in his career.
Darius Garland’s development parallels Kyrie’s in many ways.
The arrival of Donovan Mitchell changed the expectations for Garland.
Both players had to adjust their routines and habits to succeed.
Kyrie’s experience with LeBron taught him about media scrutiny.
Darius is learning from Kyrie’s past mistakes.
Kyrie’s desire to be a number one player led to his departure from Cleveland.
Garland’s growth is essential for the Cavs’ future success.
The pressure on Garland will increase as expectations rise.
Discomfort in their careers has led to personal growth for both players.
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Transcript
NOTE: This transcript was generated by artificial intelligence and could contain misspellings and errors.
Ethan Sands: What up Cavs Nation? I’m your host Ethan Sands and I’m back with another episode of the Want and Gold Talk podcast. And joining me today, none other than Jimmy Watkins, cleveland.com’s finest columnist. And we’re going to go into an interesting view on how early success is in early young careers can be developed alongside stars and how they can impact those players careers. So if you don’t know, recently Kyrie Irving took to his Twitch Stream platform to discuss his past in Cleveland where he discussed how he came into the league with poor habits and how he had to learn how to play next to LeBron James, but also just the fact of learning how to win after being in an organization that was going through a rebuild and wasn’t having early on success, especially being a number one overall pick and then going into having expectations to be in the NBA Finals year after year. Now similarly a comparison that I’ve been making for a couple of years now. Darius Garland is a player that came into the league with high expectations, obviously an early draft pick as well as but he was on a rebuilding Cavs team and then as soon as Donovan Mitchell came over from Utah the expectation shifted from okay, we want to be in the play in tournament to we want to be one of the best teams in the Eastern Conference. Jimmy, I’m curious to your thoughts about how the Cavs have operated with these two players, especially when it comes to their similarities and playstyle personality and how they have had to come up through the NBA over their early careers and transitioning to the expectations that they’ve had. Am I crazy or do you see these similarities as well?
Jimmy Watkins: It’s a similar archetype in that you’re starting with a talented guard on a rebuilding team and then you add a star next to that guard and that kind of changes the reality a little bit. In Kyrie’s case, they added two stars. I do think people have forgotten a little bit Kevin Love’s stature in the league when the Cavs traded for him. Kevin Love really did make a huge career sacrifice by joining this team and agreeing to be third banana there. He was, you know, first, second team, all NBA type player, borderline top 10 player in the league. I’m not sure he could have been the best player on a contending team, but that story was yet unwritten. I digress. I think Kyrie and Darius are are similar watches, but I think they’re different. They have different basketball philosophies on the court. Kyrie is is your combo guard. Kyrie’s A shooting guard in a point guard’s body. He’s buckets. Even in this clip, he talks about some of the habits that he had. Where he was, it was strictly buckets. I don’t think his job actually changed that much when LeBron showed up. His job, like, LeBron runs the offense, and then when LeBron needs a break or LeBron takes the bunch, it’s like, okay, Kyrie, do what you did before.
Ethan Sands: He’s not.
Jimmy Watkins: I’m not calling Kyrie a ball hog or anything like that. He’s a. He’s a facilitator. He can be a facilitator. He’s a good passer. But his job, when LeBron showed up, I don’t know that I actually think it was simplified in a good way. We’re like, hey, all we need you to do is get these buckets, because LeBron will take care of a lot of these. These other things. I think the piece that. That both Darius and Kyra could relate to is that you have to share a spotlight with these guys. You were. You were told one thing when you were drafted. This team is building around you. All of a sudden, you are now. You are part of the build around. The plan became for the Cavs, we’re building around Don Mitchell, and now it’s kind of building around Evan Mobley. Like Darius Garland has taken two. Two degrees of separation or two steps back. Honestly, in the Cavs bigger picture hierarchy, Kyrie took one, one big one. And here’s another key difference. There’s just nothing that compares to the spotlight, the scrutiny, the ball dominance that comes with peak LeBron James. It’s why Kyrie left. He tries to frame it in the switch clip like it’s not why he left. But he also says he talks out of both sides of his mouth. He says you didn’t not like playing with Braun. But at the same time, when fans and media make it about one player and only, you know, one guy gets all the credit. Whatever. Whatever he was saying, he was saying it was about Braun, but it wasn’t about Bron, essentially. Whereas I think Donovan’s a little easier to stand next to, a little bit more not even willing. Like, the cameras don’t follow Donovan the way they follow LeBron. LeBron is the greatest player of this generation. He’s one of the last, like, super famous people from the monoculture from back when we all used to watch the same stuff. Like he was sports center famous when he was 17, back when that was. That really meant something. Now everyone, everything is so segmented. Everyone has their own playlist, watches their own shows, has their own sports over the top app. Like, we’re just a more segmented society. So LeBron’s a different kind of famous. And the interesting thing here too is with Darius and Kyle, like, as much as they have, they both had to adjust their day to day basketball lives. Kyrie’s two highest field goal attempts per 36 minute numbers came during his last two years in Cleveland. Darius’s highest field goal time for 36 minutes number was last year. This is where we’re talking more people, I think, than basketball. Like your, your opportunities actually haven’t shrunk that much. At least that’s what the numbers are telling me. It. They probably feel different and, and come to you differently. Like you’re not as much in control of when they get to attack or flip that switch. You’re kind of waiting for someone else to give you a chance more often. And that is a huge switch when you’ve been a franchise pillar. But I think this is, this is more of a life hierarchy status adjustment for both of them than it is a basketball adjustment. Though it is still a basketball adjustment.
Ethan Sands: So one of the things that kind of goes hand in hand with basketball adjustment and personal life adjustment is your habits, right? Because you have a routine in your personal life, you have a routine in basketball life, all these different things. And I want to give the exact quote from Kyrie Irving from his Twitch stream, just so I don’t mince any words or change any of his words. What he said was, I love Cleveland. Don’t get me wrong. I’m appreciative of all the things that they’ve done for me. But at the same time, I would have loved to choose the franchise I wanted to go to. I would have loved to develop next to some of my favorite players and some of my favorite people. Because being a young player, when you’re on a team that’s not winning a lot of games, there’s a lot of bad habits that form. And that’s what ended up happening to me. When I was very young. I had a lot of bad habits. I was not a winner. I was not a loser, you know, at all. I take accountability. I had a lot of bad habits as a young player, and that came from losing games and just trying to get buckets all the time. So kind of going into what Jimmy was talking about with how to Kyrie Irving was resorting back to his what he knew, which is bucket getting when called upon, because that’s what the Cavs needed in spurts. But for Darius, we’ve learned from Kenny Atkinson that he’s wanted him to work on his game from the habits perspective more than his actual game on the court. Right. That means diet, that means training regimen in the gym. Because we know Darius Garland’s next step depth is on the defensive end of the floor. Being able to hold up defensively, being able to guard, being able to not be a target on the defensive end when it comes to the playoffs. And a lot of that has to do with his strength, agility, and ability to move laterally when it comes to the defensive end of the floor and staying in front of his man. Again, the strength aspect is huge for that. But Kenny Atkinson alluding to or just straight up saying that Darius Garland needed to improve his habits is telling. And that’s the main comparison that I’ve made when it comes to Kyrie Irving saying that he had bad habits early on in his career. It wasn’t necessarily on the court, but it was necessarily like how he thought about what the, the team required from him. And I think that’s really interesting because we talk about how Darius Garland has improved and has taken that next step, but also how much of an improvement he still needs to make for this COWS team to not feel like they’re going to get attacked on every defensive possession when it comes to Darius Garland. And sure, Jimmy, I know you’re going to go here next. The size aspect of Darius Garland already makes that difficult for him. He’s an undersized player when it comes to stature. But I think we talk about these things because Kenny Atkinson sees something in him. And Kenny Atkinson has continuously made the comparison between Darius Garland and Stephen Curry because of the work that they needed to do behind the scenes. I think Kyrie Irving also had that kind of mental necessity and development that he wasn’t able to do until he left Cleveland. And that’s something that we’ll go into a little bit later.
Jimmy Watkins: And this is where I think this, this is where having the floor shift beneath your feet can be a good thing. Like D with Donovan Mitchell showed up, basketball life just got a whole lot more serious. You know, we’re, you know, we went from, we went from being applauded for making the play in to getting skewered for winning 50 games and losing in the, in the first round. That’s, that’s life. That’s like a real wake up call about what being a professional athlete is. There’s like when you first get into the league and You’re a rookie, everything is, it feels like everything is gravy. Like when you’re a young player, a young talented player on a rebuilding team, I think there’s, there’s grace involved is, oh, we, we’ve hit on a draft pick. This is so exciting. Any, any good game that Darius Garland has, that’s, that’s enough to feed a fan base for, for the week. And a good season from your, from your young prospects is, is enough for the first, I don’t know, two years, three years. Eventually their, their expectations would come naturally. But when you trade for a superstar in the middle of that, like it’s a whole lot serious. And then your habits have to reflect that. And when you’re not, when you have, when so much of your life you’re trying to get in the league, you’re trying to just adjust to your new reality, things just slip through the cracks. I feel like I can imagine it being an overwhelming experience. Right. So then once you get your bearings, Garris Garland getting his bearings while trying to adjust to this new, very intense grading scale that he’s being held to without in town. I can see how, I can see how the habits would need to change along the way. Also. Just think about how old these people are. We see professional athletes, we hold them to the stand and they make bajillions of dollars. So we should hold them to strict standards. But we still should note that Darius Carlin was 23 years old when Donovan Mitchell showed up. I don’t know what you, the listener were like at 23 years old. I did not have a string of my life together or as 23 year old, you could argue, yeah, whatever, whatever my version of Darius Garland’s habits were, were probably much worse than his. So that’s part, that’s part of this equation too. I mean, when LeBron came to Cleveland, Kyrie was 22. Very similar. And I think Kyrie’s, I think you did see a little jump in durability for Kyrie once LeBron got here. So I don’t know that he’s ever openly spoken about that. But I would not be surprised of being around LeBron, whose workout regimens and lifestyle changes to extend his career are legendary and expensive. The old quote is that he spends a million dollars a year on his body. Seeing that up close, will haven’t. Will have a positive impact on you. And I think what Kyrie was saying, he was talking about winning on Ford habits because again, when you’re on a lottery bound team and you’re the star. And there’s not a ton of expectations on you. Like get buckets. That’s enough. That’s enough sometimes. But it’s. You learn real quick how enough it is when, when you, your team put. Adds a piece that puts you in a, in a different level of discussion. And I think that’s a healthy thing. Like it’s uncomfortable, but, you know, I think discomfort breeds growth. And I think we are, we are. We have seen that with, with both of these players here. Even if they’re, they’re. They’re telling you it hasn’t always, it hasn’t always been easier, even what they preferred.
Ethan Sands: Yeah, and I think that’s a Good point. Obviously, LeBron’s training regimen is legend, right? And obviously we’ve already seen that with Luka Doncic, right. One one year in and Luka Doncic is arguably in the best shape of his life after playing alongside LeBron James and seeing what he did to prepare his body for games and all these things. Not necessarily saying it was all because of that, but it certainly helps. The main difference that I think between Kyrie and Darius and I think you were trying to get into this a little bit earlier. Jimmy Kyrie came into the league and was rookie of the year. Kyrie came into the league as was somebody that was ready to take over and be the number one guy as soon as he stepped on the court. Darius Garland was not. He was arguably one of the worst players in the NBA when he came into the league. It took him years to get to the all star level. Kyrie Irving was already in that category, already having those conversations. We talk about how Donovan and Darius had to have these uncomfortable conversations, these grown men conversations, for Darius to click in his mind that one, he wasn’t the number one guy anymore, and two, that Donovan was there to help him, not to hinder his success. And I think we’ve seen that growth, even if it didn’t click at the very beginning for Darius. It was apparent in his gameplay and obviously he was taking a step up already. He had been growing in that aspect. But to be able to see his growth alongside Donovan is something that I think is a testament to Donovan Mitchell’s leadership. One, but two, also just Darius Garland continuing to be himself and working on his game in a sense that he knew that he had to improve to keep up with the level of competition and the expectations that were going to come with him. Kyrie Irving, on the other hand, already had these expectations because he was coming in as the number one pick and he was rookie of the year. But then it was exceedingly high expectations for NBA Finals with LeBron James and the media were going to scrutinize anything that you said or did around him. And even Kyrie in his Twitch stream said that it was a little weird having someone that is compared to some of the greats, one of the guys like LeBron next to him and how the media and all of them would go about their conversations and the expectations for the Cleveland Cavaliers at that point because of not only the media attention, but he said, the back and forth narratives, a lot of fun narratives and a lot of politics behind the scenes as well. So I think it’s interesting. And Jimmy, one of the most interesting things was how Kyrie kind of ended the this topic of discussion during his Twitch stream when he said, you don’t know what happened. So many media people that were commenting on no idea what’s happening and here you are just adding details to something that has nothing to do with you. Everybody was trying to guess, everybody was trying to figure out what’s going on. It was unbelievable. When I’m done playing, you guys will hear the real story. That one, was a hard hitter for me and two, the other part he said, when I’m done playing in the next few years. So obviously we know Kyrie Irving is getting a little bit older. So sure his, his retirement is coming, but for him to admit that he’s only got a few years left, also him admitting that he wants to tell the story and obviously Twitch platforms might not be the best form to do that. But there seems like there’s more and there still seems like there’s for him something underlying that he hasn’t gotten to discuss yet. When it comes to the LeBron James tenure, what do you think about that whole dynamic?
Jimmy Watkins: This is where Kyrie loses me. Honestly, he’s, he comes off super defensive. I understand why he might feel a little poison pilled against the media because especially during his return to Cleveland days, there were some LeBron sycophants. There are still plenty of LeBron sycophants in the media. When you play on LeBron’s team, it is very often all his credit when you win, all your fault when he loses and that, that it certainly felt like that during the Cav days. And sometimes that was true, sometimes that wasn’t. And I wholeheartedly understand what Kyrie is saying when he says, you don’t know what it would be like to walk in those shoes.
Ethan Sands: You know, I said that this year. Darius Garland said, sure I mean, I.
Jimmy Watkins: Think every athlete ever has also said that. I’m not trying to devalue it, but. And by the way, it’s still true. We all, none of us, no Normie, no narp, as they say, would know what it’s like to have that level of media scrutiny on them. That’s kind of what the money’s for. Just saying. But that doesn’t mean that you. Just because you have the money doesn’t mean that you can’t then acknowledge that you have issues. And yes, there are certain parts of modern day media that we don’t do very well. And I also think that players often confuse random faces on social media with real media members. And our media literacy isn’t very high. So it’s hard to differentiate who’s a serious media member, who’s not a serious media member. That’s a podcast for a different day. But I relate, I sympathize, empathize with that struggle. We don’t know what it’s like. That being said, what’s there left to say about Kyrie and LeBron? Like, do we actually. Sincere question for the subtexters. Do you guys still care that much about why he left? Because I really do think we understand it. I think when Carrie says we’ll tell the story eventually, what Kyrie’s going to do is what a lot of players are doing these days, which is self produce their own documentary where they put their own spin on their own careers and get a bunch of people that they know will say nice things about them and tell the most flattering, their most flattering version of the truth about their career. The reality is, though, that Kyrie got tired of being LeBron’s sidekick, wanted to see if he could do his own thing. There’s nothing wrong with that, like seeing what you can. You only have. You have such a limited shelf life as a professional athlete. If, if one of your, one of your things you want to get done, your bucket list, career bucket list includes, hey, I want to see if I can be a number one guy on a championship team. Cool. It’s it. He picked a strange time to do it in the middle of one of the greatest NBA rivalries that we’ve had in modern day history. But okay, I get it. I, I can’t fault a guy for having ambition. We’ve talked about that on the, on the pod before, the way he went about it. Well, I don’t know if we needed to threaten knee surgery over it, but maybe, maybe in Kyrie’s version of events, that didn’t happen. Maybe, maybe there’s more to the LeBron stuff. I’m sure there’s more to the LeBron angle of things that we haven’t heard yet. But I think the long and short of it is that Kyrie wanted to go be a number one guy and leave LeBron shadow. He tried it. It didn’t work. In fact, it failed miserably both in Boston and in Brooklyn. And now Kyrie’s looked before the acl. He looked as good as he had ever looked. And guess what? It was playing next to a. Not just a number two. He wasn’t just a number two. Again, he was playing against a player that is extremely comparable to LeBron. Tristan Thompson, after the. I remember, I think it was at the day of the Luka trade. Tristan called Luka Caucasian. LeBron, like, they are very similar players. They have very similar play styles. And Kyrie, what do you know, fits really well next to that playstyle. You won a championship doing it. Kyrie and Luca, their second year together, really their first full year together, they made the finals. That works for him. So I just, I just, I’m kind of. I’m kind of tired of Kyrie playing victim like he. He. I entered. Hey, maybe he. His career would be different if he had to pick his own franchise from day one, but it kind of worked out for you in Cleveland. In fact, most of your legacy is. Is built on the fact that you landed here very shortly before LeBron came back and you have one of the coolest shots, most important shots, clutch of shots in NBA history. You and LeBron put pulled off something that this sport will never forget. But it’s. That’s because you landed here like Cleveland. You’d be thank. Thankful for Cleveland. He said he is. But like when, when, when you took the wheel and started telling your own story, the story went south. So I just, I just don’t have. I don’t have a ton of patience for, for whatever posturing he’s doing at the end of that Twitch stream. I actually, when you sent it to me, that’s when I just closed the video. I was like, all right, we’re done here. I’ve heard this before from this guy.
Ethan Sands: So a couple things before we get out of here. I want to make sure that we get this point in there from what Kyrie said during his Twitch stream. He’s saying, quote, there’s going to be a lot that a lot of people don’t see in front of the camera. And for me, I was just a young person trying to figure it out. It’s not that I disliked playing with LeBron at any time. It was just literally my time to move on. And that’s what people got to accept. They want a deeper, detailed dive in terms of what happened. It was my time to move on and I don’t care if I am am remembered as that person. So I find this very funny just because I feel like we’ve had this conversation over, over recent years where Kyrie has admitted that he needed to grow up to play next to LeBron and that’s why he was able to have success playing next to Luka this past season. The other comparison that I’m going to draw is to the rumors from a couple years ago when Darius Garland was allegedly going to leave the Cleveland Cavaliers if Donovan Mitchell signed an extension. Obviously, as Darius Garland has made those extremely clear, those were just rumors. Even though the Athletic came out with a almost full op ed on the topic directly after the Boston Celtics series. Jimmy, when we talk about that dynamic of this comparison and how Darius Garland has gone from rumored to be I’m going to leave to I’m here to stay. I just think it’s an interesting topic when we talk about how Darius Garland may have viewed himself as Kyrie and said, okay, well let me take a step back and one of the topics that we talked about way, way before when this was happening was that like maybe you understand that if you go somewhere else, you’re not going to have the career that you might have wanted, we might have thought you had and you’re in a situation that is set up to win for years to come, is set up to try as Kyrie, Iran and LeBron were doing going to the NBA Finals back to back to back. And you have the opportunity to grow as a player not only with a player who wants to see you be great LeBron or Donovan Mitchell in this case, but also a developing player in Evan Mobley who is going to try and take you to the next level. I just think there’s parallels to this conversation. I think there’s distinct observations that have been made and also the conversations that they have had are eerily similar. And obviously understanding the playstyles and how these guys personalities are as well, the happy go lucky turned into kind of standoffish at times when it comes to certain conversations. This is a comparison between Darius and Kyrie where Darius is learning from Kyrie Irving’s mistakes in the past and using them now and reaping the benefits of those mistakes because he’s not making the.
Jimmy Watkins: Same ones learn too much, I would say. I mean, I also don’t, I don’t know if Darius, I wonder if Darius sees himself quite in that same light because he, I mean, he didn’t go all the way through with it either. He didn’t, he didn’t end up leaving. I also, to the, to the point about Darius calling those rumors, rumors, they came from somewhere, Buddy, and they gave him somebody close to you. And I think this is not a Chris missile or anything. I think the coaching change helped the Cavs case with Darius and I think that it may have also been, we talked about this at the time. It may have also been relayed to Darius that, hey, we’re not getting the trade offers we would want for you, so get ready to learn. Let them go, Buddy. Or let them know, Buddy. And it’s funny how when you realize you can’t be traded or you won’t be traded, how you, you come to grips with, with your environment. And it’s worked great. I think last was last year because it was after the, the Boston series that we were hearing this stuff about Darius last year went really well. It didn’t work in the playoffs because he got hurt. That’s unfortunate. But I’m interested to see how this progresses going forward because I do think that going into the playoffs next year there will be an immense amount of pressure on Darius Garland because fair or unfair, the fact is he still hasn’t really performed. Not I’m going to take the qualifier. He has not performed like the All Star that he is in the playoffs. And yes, there have been injuries that contributed to that. But if he has a healthy, relatively healthy postseason that looks like the last three, there’s going to be another firestorm coming his way. And I wonder how he’ll feel about his newly improved and brightened spotlight then.
Ethan Sands: I think that’s well said and I think Darius Garland still again has a lot to prove. And as we know, Darius Garland will be coming off a toe surgery, a left big toe surgery to start the season. Whether or not he starts the season, it’s still up in the air. Whether or not he misses the first 10 games is still up in the air. But it was shown on social media this past week. Darius Garland being in the same facility as Donovan Mitchell, Max Stru, DeAndre Hunter, Evan Mobley, who are getting in pre camp runs and legitimately doing pre camp runs in California on a beach hill as of yesterday where they were had cones set up and all these things. How much involvement Darius Garland had unknown, but I think that’s a good update when it comes to him just being around the guys and being able to participate in some capacity when it comes to being on the basketball floor, being on a beach, getting a workout in and getting his physical therapy that he needs before the season, before training camp and how much he’ll be held back or how much he will be available when it comes to training camp. And that’s still to be seen. But with all that being said, that’ll wrap up today’s episode of the Wine and Gold Talk podcast. But remember to become a Cavs insider and interact with Chris, me and Jimmy by subscribing to Subtext. I know we did not get to the hey Chris questions today. We’re going to bank them. We’ll use them for next week. So if you want to sign up for a 14 day free trial or visit cleveland.com cabs and click on the blue bar at the top of the page, you can send in new questions to go along with the questions that we will use next week. And if you don’t like subtext, that’s fine. All you have to do is text the word stop. It’s easy, but we can tell you that the people who sign up stick around because this is the best way to get insider coverage on the Cavs from me, Chris and Jimmy. This isn’t just our podcast, it’s your podcast. And the only way to have your voice heard is through subfact. Y’ all be safe. We out.
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