The fit makes more sense than you would think.
Darius Garland has had months to think about what a fresh start with the Los Angeles Clippers should look like, and the model he keeps coming back to is the point guard his new head coach once won a title with.
Ty Lue coached Kyrie Irving in Cleveland during the Cavaliers' 2016 championship run, and Garland grew up watching that version of Irving carve up playoff defenses.
Now that the two share a building, Garland is asking his coach to bring some of that old blueprint out of storage for him.
"It's super cool, because I've actually watched him in 2016. I told him I wanted to play a little bit like Ky and how he played in 2016 in that Finals run," Garland said in an interview with HoopsHype's Cyro Asseo.
Why The Comparison Fits
The idea is less far-fetched than it sounds.
Garland averaged 19.9 points in his 19 games after the midseason trade from Cleveland, and he shot 43.8 percent from three in that stretch, numbers that came while he was still getting comfortable in a new offense.
Lue has spent his coaching career building around guards who can score at all three levels, and Garland told Asseo the two have been talking a lot about the offense this year.
A full training camp together should tighten that partnership in ways a half season never could.
Garland also arrives with something to prove physically.
He described to HoopsHype how what felt like a simple toe problem turned out to involve torn ligaments, leaving him to play through pain for roughly half a season before the injury was fully addressed.
A healthy version of him changes the math for a Clippers team that finished 42-40 and ninth in the Western Conference last season, because the difference between that finish and a real playoff run was mostly health and continuity in the backcourt.
Backcourt Taking Shape
The front office has been busy building around its new lead guard.
Max Strus arrived from Cleveland in last week's five-team trade and gives Garland a familiar shooter to play off of, one who hit better than 40 percent of his threes a season ago, while the club also added Jalen Pickett and waived a young guard to keep sorting the depth chart.
Where restricted free agent Bennedict Mathurin fits is still an open question since the Bradley Beal signing.
There are bigger uncertainties hanging over the franchise, starting with the unresolved Kawhi Leonard trade, and Rui Hachimura has already defended his own decision to change teams this offseason.
Whatever the roster looks like in October, the offense is being handed to Garland, and that is the real story buried in one throwaway nickname.
He is telling everyone exactly what he wants to do with the job, he has spent the summer planning it with his coach, and the man who ran that 2016 playbook is the one person best equipped to help him pull it off.
