Cutoff/status: 2026-07-18; verified LAC guard, age 26, entering his eighth NBA season. NBA lists him as a guard; Hashtag's current fantasy eligibility is PG. NBA profile · Los Angeles Clippers
Baseline and 2026-27 projection
Across Cleveland and LA, Garland played 45 games at 29.9 MPG and averaged 18.8 points, 6.7 assists, 2.4 rebounds, 1.0 steal, 2.7 threes and 2.9 turnovers on .460/.861 shooting. In 19 Clippers games he shot 43.8% from three, a useful sample but not a new true-talent assumption. ESPN statistics · NBA trade report
| GP | MPG | FG% | FT% | 3PM | PTS | REB | AST | STL | BLK | TO |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 62 | 32.0 | .455 | .865 | 2.6 | 19.4 | 2.5 | 7.2 | 1.0 | 0.2 | 2.9 |
Fantasy translation
- Nine-category: rank 40-65 per game; assists, threes and FT% are the core, while rebounds, blocks and turnovers cap the ceiling.
- Points: top-45-to-70, especially where assists carry 1.5 or more points.
- Dynasty: rank 55-75. Hashtag's July crowd board placed him 65th, and an early SI redraft list placed him 41st. Hashtag · Sports Illustrated
Role and scenarios
- Low: toe management holds him near 50 games and the Leonard/Ingram branch leaves him at 18 points with elevated turnovers.
- Base: 32 minutes, seven-plus assists and high-volume threes as the starting point guard beside Keaton Wagler.
- High: 68-72 games and a clean primary role produce roughly 21 points and eight assists, pushing into the top 35.
Official game notes show repeated left-toe management after the February trade. Leonard's departure would increase scoring responsibility; it would not meaningfully threaten Garland's initiation role. Official Clippers game notes
Confidence
| Roster | Minutes | Rate | Availability |
|---|---|---|---|
| High | High | High | Medium-low |
Career record
Pre-NBA: Vanderbilt (one season, 2018-19), and almost none of it. He played five games, averaging 16.2 points, 3.8 rebounds and 2.6 assists on .537 FG, .478 3PT and .750 FT, before tearing the meniscus in his knee on a layup against Kent State on November 23, 2018. He announced on January 22, 2019 that he would leave Vanderbilt to rehab and prepare for the draft. The five-game sample was efficient enough that his lottery stock held despite the injury. Draft: 2019, first round, 5th overall, Cleveland. Cleveland traded him to the LA Clippers for James Harden and a second-round pick on February 5, 2026.
| Season | Age | Team | GP | MPG | PTS | REB | AST | STL | BLK | 3PM | FG% | FT% | TO |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2019-20 | 20 | CLE | 59 | 30.9 | 12.3 | 1.9 | 3.9 | 0.7 | 0.1 | 1.8 | .401 | .875 | 2.6 |
| 2020-21 | 21 | CLE | 54 | 33.1 | 17.4 | 2.4 | 6.1 | 1.2 | 0.1 | 1.9 | .451 | .848 | 3.0 |
| 2021-22 | 22 | CLE | 68 | 35.7 | 21.7 | 3.3 | 8.6 | 1.3 | 0.1 | 2.6 | .462 | .892 | 3.6 |
| 2022-23 | 23 | CLE | 69 | 35.5 | 21.6 | 2.7 | 7.8 | 1.2 | 0.1 | 2.4 | .462 | .863 | 2.9 |
| 2023-24 | 24 | CLE | 57 | 33.3 | 18.0 | 2.7 | 6.5 | 1.3 | 0.1 | 2.3 | .446 | .834 | 3.1 |
| 2024-25 | 25 | CLE | 75 | 30.7 | 20.6 | 2.9 | 6.7 | 1.2 | 0.1 | 2.8 | .472 | .878 | 2.5 |
| 2025-26 | 26 | CLE | 26 | 30.5 | 18.0 | 2.4 | 6.9 | 0.8 | 0.1 | 2.3 | .451 | .861 | 2.8 |
| 2025-26 | 26 | LAC | 19 | 29.1 | 19.9 | 2.3 | 6.4 | 1.2 | 0.3 | 3.3 | .471 | .860 | 3.0 |
| Career | 427 | 32.9 | 18.9 | 2.6 | 6.7 | 1.1 | 0.1 | 2.4 | .454 | .866 | 2.9 |
Two-time All-Star (2022, 2025). The 2025-26 season is shown as its two halves; the combined 45-game line is 29.9 MPG, 18.8 points, 2.4 rebounds, 6.7 assists, 1.0 steal, 2.7 threes and 2.9 turnovers.
Fantasy history: 2021-22 is the one directly citable finish — 23rd in eight-category per-game production, on the back of 8.6 assists, 2.6 threes and a .892 free throw mark. Season-end 9-cat ranks for the other years are not verified here and I will not estimate them, but the per-game shape is stable enough to describe: 2022-23 and 2024-25 are the other two clearly top-40-caliber category seasons, 2023-24 is a step down on lower efficiency, and 2019-20 was outright negative value at .401 from the field. The recurring problem is that his 9-cat rank always trails his raw production because he pairs 2.5 to 3.6 turnovers with near-zero blocks and thin rebounds — three of nine categories are dead weight. Points leagues treat him better in assist-premium formats and slightly worse in standard ones, since turnovers are penalized there too. The elite free throw percentage on real volume is the quiet category asset that keeps showing up.
Durability: 59, 54, 68, 69, 57, 75, 45. Only one season above 70 games in seven years. The causes are specific and mostly unrelated to each other: a fractured jaw from a collision with Kristaps Porzingis in December 2023 that cost 19 games and required his jaw to be wired shut (he lost 12 pounds and later described losing his joy for the game); a left great toe injury first diagnosed March 23, 2025 that cost only two regular-season games but was aggravated in the first-round series against Miami, cost him four playoff games, and required June 2025 surgery with a four-to-five-month timeline; and a toe reaggravation in 2025-26 — he returned, played three games, and was diagnosed with a great left toe contusion. He was then out from January 14, 2026 with a Grade 1 toe sprain (reported as the right toe at the time of the trade, which does not match the left-toe surgical history and is worth resolving), and reporting has floated all-year management as the likely operating mode.
Trajectory: The leap was 2021-22 and it was real — assists jumped from 6.1 to 8.6 and field goal percentage climbed from .451 to .462 at higher volume, which is skill and role compounding rather than minutes, since minutes only moved from 33.1 to 35.7. Everything since has been a controlled decline in usage against improving efficiency: minutes have fallen every year from 35.7 to 29.1, yet 2024-25 posted his best true shooting season (.472 from the field, 2.8 threes, .878 free throws) on 30.7 minutes. That is the signature of a player getting better per possession while the surrounding roster takes the ball out of his hands, first for Donovan Mitchell in Cleveland and now in a Clippers offense still sorting itself out. The 19-game Clippers sample is encouraging in shape — 3.3 threes a game and his first non-trivial block rate — but 43.8 percent from three over 19 games is not a new true-talent level and should not be projected forward. He is 26, past the age where you expect further skill growth but nowhere near decline, so the entire 2026-27 question is the toe. A player whose value rests on burst and change of direction, carrying a surgically repaired great toe that has now flared three separate times in fifteen months, is a games-played bet before he is a production bet.
Career sources: ESPN career stats · Wikipedia — Darius Garland · NBA.com, Harden-Garland trade, 2026-02-05 · NBA.com, toe surgery, June 2025 · Hoops Rumors, Grade 1 toe sprain, Jan 2026 · NBA.com, return from broken jaw, 2024 · StatMuse, season-by-season per game
Table re-verified cell-by-cell against ESPN and StatMuse on 2026-07-18; both agree on every row, the two-team 2025-26 split and the career line. One source-rounding difference: ESPN lists 2023-24 at 33.3 MPG and StatMuse at 33.4. The ESPN figure is used above.
Open questions
- Is the left toe fully cleared for training camp and back-to-backs?
- How often does Wagler initiate rather than play as a secondary creator?
- Does Leonard stay, or does Ingram become Garland's primary half-court partner?