Darius Garland Rumors

Lonzo Ball believes the Cleveland Cavaliers hurt their championship chances when they moved on from him and Darius Garland, arguing that the team would have achieved greater playoff success had the backcourt remained intact. Reflecting on the organization’s decision, Ball questioned whether the move aligned with a win-now approach and suggested the previous group was capable of making a deeper postseason run. “If you were trying to win a championship, I don’t think that’s the path you should’ve taken,” the player said.

TalkBasket

Garland doesn't think LeBron will head back to the Cavs “Sunny days, 75 every day. … It’s 40 there now," Garland said Tuesday on "Ball In The Family Podcast".

Sports Illustrated

The 26-year-old point guard also discussed how he found his joy back playing for the Clippers. "It's been great, bro," Garland added. "Coming to a system where I can actually be me. Have the ball in my hand for the majority of the game and actually have control of the pace of the game. Just being like a second coach out there, literally. It was fun when I was out there playing, for sure. I got my joy back."

Sports Illustrated

That plan probably changed at the trade deadline. Their acquisition of Darius Garland, while giving them a better player than one they could realistically have signed in free agency, also wiped out a meaningful chunk of their cap space. They can now generate up to $30 million, but doing so would also require renouncing the cap holds for all of their free agents. Not only would they lose several players on team options to access that room, but they would also be sacrificing the Bird rights to Bennedict Mathurin and John Collins.

Third Apron

Atkinson took the 2025 playoff failure hard and rewatched every possession from the series against Indiana, looking for what went wrong. He was hard on his staff, numerous league sources said, in part because he felt he couldn’t be overly hard on the players. But at the same time, with Darius Garland and Max Strus out to start the regular season, Atkinson tried to lean on Evan Mobley to be more of an offensive threat. Both he and the team struggled with that priority.

New York Times

How do you make the Clippers again as relevant as you guys did? Darius Miles: I think that you just have to kind of clean slate, make some moves. I love Kawhi Leonard. I love Kawhi Leonard as a Clipper. I don’t want to let him go, but he’s probably the only one that you have to have some leverage to get out there and get some more picks or get some more players. I think it’s time for them probably to let Kawhi go, which I hate to say, but I think they need to clean slate it. They got a young Darius Garland. They got Bennett. They’re just going in a new direction. So I think this pick and them using Kawhi Leonard can make enough moves to kind of give them a nice young team that can play.

YouTube

New Balance executive Chris Davis: If you look at the NBA, I’m pretty sure we have seven or eight All-Stars, starting with Kawhi (Leonard) to Zach LaVine, Tyrese Maxey, Jamal Murray, Dejounte Murray, Darius Garland, and then enter Cooper Flagg. In this year’s draft, we have Caleb Wilson, who is a star freshman from North Carolina and will be a top-five pick. And then as a senior in high school, we have Jordan Smith Jr., who’s the top recruit in the country going into the NCAA; he’s committed to Arkansas. So that’s what the basketball landscape looks like.

New York Times

Ramona Shelburne: “30 did what 30 does. That was the 4th quarter.” Darius Garland on Stephen Curry and the Warriors.

x.com

Ramona Shelburne: Darius Garland says he’s really focused on getting healthy this offseason. “I’m out there on nine toes.”

x.com

Darius Garland: "Not the way we wanted to end this season. But I take my hat off to this group, for real. All 15 guys played their butts off."

x.com

Farbod Esnaashari: Darius Garland on what he wanted to prove after getting traded to the Clippers: "I just wanted to really come out here and prove a point that I'm still one of those guys in this league... Just go on the drawing board this summer, get healthy, see what we can do with a full season."

x.com

‪Lue is under contract through 2029. Garland is the Clippers’ new point guard of the future. They’re not going anywhere, a league source told The Athletic.

New York Times

Law Murray: After Tyronn Lue confirmed that he will not confirm starters, I asked him about working with Darius Garland now that Garland has been playing for 1.5 months

x.com

He also has Darius Garland, a new, in-his-prime point guard to build with, not just manage. “Having a young point guard under my tutelage is the first time I’ve really had it since Kyrie (Irving),” Lue said. “It’s gonna be fun.” That distinction matters most with Garland. After Tyronn Lue was fired by the Cavaliers in 2018, Klutch Sports CEO Rich Paul introduced him to Garland, then just 19 and newly drafted. They crossed paths again months later at a Las Vegas comedy show during Garland’s first NBA Summer League. “We went to the Dave Chappelle show in Vegas, and we just hit it off right there,” Garland told The Athletic. “It just happened naturally, really.”

New York Times