Darius Garland’s comeback after a gruesome injury is nothing short of inspirational. After breaking his jaw in a regular season matchup against the Celtics in late 2023, the Cavaliers’ point guard experienced a serious drop in form. He’s silenced critics this season, though. Along with leading the Cavs to a league-best 46-10 record, he was selected to his second All-Star team last week.
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Just how did Garland recover from having his jaw broken and wired back into place and being restricted to a liquid diet? Well, the secret lay in Kanye West’s Grammy Award-winning album College Dropout—more specifically, the song “Through the Wire.”
Speaking to The Deep3 Podcast, Garland was frank about his injury experience. “That part sucked,” he said. He added that the media’s response to his injury was especially hurtful. “That was just, it was like mind-boggling to me,” he said. “I’m 20 pounds lighter, in the 2nd round of the playoffs against the NBA Champions. You’re just gonna blame me off that?” he told his hosts.
Of course, they sympathized with him and quickly moved on to a different, less painful topic, the recovery. When asked how he found his way back to form, the point guard replied, “My only motivation was my family, and my alarm clock was “Through the Wire” by Kanye.”
He revealed that he’d rap along with the lyrics of the song while recovering, using the words as motivation. Coincidentally, West recorded the song with his jaw wired shut after a car accident injury in 2002. Garland claimed the song took on a whole new level of relatability because he was doing exactly what West was rapping about.
While Garland joked about his recovery process, the truth is that it was much harder on him than he’d originally expected. In fact, he used a phrase Jimmy Butler made popular this year and said the injury caused him to lose his joy for basketball.
Darius Garland’s road back from surgery was a tough one
Speaking to Cleveland.com’s Chris Fedor, Garland claimed the injury to his jaw did more than just ruin his season. It took away the joy he got from basketball. The resulting surgery kept him out for 19 games in the middle of the season, and Garland called it another bump in the road. He said,
“We were getting better as a team. I felt like I was starting to learn so much and then … another bump in the road, another year of adversity. I sort of lost my joy for basketball.”
Of course, the recovery and Cleveland’s faith in his skills have seen a renewed Garland. After reports emerged last offseason of teams inquiring about his availability in trades, the Cavs shut down all rumors by making their stance clear: They hadn’t lost faith in him and were keeping him.
That faith has paid dividends, as the Cavs are heading to a franchise-record number of victories this season, with forecasts projecting them to reach 67 wins.
