CLEVELAND -- Despite being one of the co-favorites to win the Eastern Conference, the Cleveland Cavaliers head into the 2025-26 season with two starters -- All-Star point guard Darius Garland and swingman Max Strus -- recovering from offseason left foot surgeries and likely to miss time when the regular season begins on Oct. 22.
However, there was varying levels of optimism from the two players on their respective roads back to the court.
Garland, who had surgery in June to repair a turf toe injury that hampered him during Cleveland's disappointing second-round exit at the hands of the Indiana Pacers, said he has been back on the court working out for a month, though he is still expected to miss time to start the regular season.
"Everything is good," Garland said Monday at Cavs' media day. "Summer went really well. Rehab has been going really well. I'm back on the court, moving around, I'm ramping up for the season. So everything's been good. It's been a really good offseason. Everything's been looking great, the doctors have been saying everything's been looking great, so I'm happy where I'm at right now.
"I'm going to keep working, keep aggressive, working on conditioning and cardio right now, so happy to be back on the court."
When speaking to reporters here last week ahead of camp opening, Cavaliers president of basketball operations Koby Altman said the process of getting Garland's conditioning back was something that would take some time to happen. Garland later added that he's doing "everything" on the court -- a notion he reiterated when asked if he's taking any contact.
Strus, meanwhile, suffered a Jones fracture during an offseason workout, saying he went to jump and "it just cracked," an injury he called "unfortunate." But Strus, who said he's five weeks out from the surgery, was walking around -- albeit slowly -- without a boot on his foot. And while he's still out for at least a couple more months, he's hoping for another good report from his doctors when he has his six-week checkup next week.
"I'm in a good spot right now," Strus said, "and everything seems to be healing."
With two perimeter players sidelined to start the season, rising star forward Evan Mobley said he's going to be handling the ball more -- something he added he spent the summer working on regardless, and was excited to have a bigger role in doing.
Star Donovan Mitchell, meanwhile, said a "switch flipped" in his head when he heard about Strus' injury, and knowing what would be required from him at the start of the season. Coming off winning 64 games last season, Mitchell and the Cavs hope to break through and reach the NBA Finals for the first time since 2018 -- and the first time in franchise history without LeBron James on the roster.
"I think for me, I just was like, 'Look, I'm just going to be in the best shape possible, going to be ready to go, and if I need to adjust, I need to adjust,'" said Mitchell, who was hobbled with injuries of his own for the second straight playoffs with the Cavaliers this past spring.
"If we get to November or we get to October and it's like, 'Hey, we need to scale it back, we need to scale it back,'" Mitchell added. "But I'd rather be there than saying, 'Hey, you need to spend an extra four hours in the gym.' Because now I'm playing catch up, and then we got to go win basketball games on top of already being hobbled at the guard spot. So I'd rather be prepared and then have to kind of adjust from that than anything else."