Cleveland Cavaliers

The Cleveland Cavaliers (often called the Cavs) are a professional basketball team from Cleveland that plays in the NBA's Eastern Conference Central Division. They joined the league as an expansion franchise in 1970, alongside the Portland Trail Blazers and Buffalo Braves. The team played at Cleveland Arena from 1970 to 1974, then moved to the Richfield Coliseum until 1994. Since then, their home court has been Rocket Arena in downtown Cleveland, which they share with the Cleveland Monsters of the American Hockey League. Dan Gilbert has been the team's owner since March 2005.

The Cavaliers lost their first 15 games in their debut season and struggled early on, finishing no higher than sixth in the Eastern Conference over their first five years. They won their first Central Division title in 1976, which also brought their first winning record and first playoff appearance, advancing to the Eastern Conference Finals. Ted Stepien bought the franchise in 1980. His ownership saw six coaching changes, poor trades and draft moves, and low attendance, costing $15 million in losses. The team went 66–180 over three seasons and had a 24-game losing streak that stretched across the 1981–82 and 1982–83 seasons.

George and Gordon Gund purchased the team in 1983. From the late 1980s through much of the 1990s, the Cavs were regular playoff contenders, led by players like Mark Price and Brad Daugherty, and reached the Eastern Conference Finals in 1992. After a playoff appearance in the 1997–98 season, the team had six straight losing seasons and missed the playoffs. Cleveland got the top overall pick in the 2003 draft and selected LeBron James.

With James and Zydrunas Ilgauskas, the Cavaliers became playoff regulars again by 2005. They made their first NBA Finals in 2007 after winning their first Eastern Conference title. After three seasons without returning to the Finals, James left for the Miami Heat in 2010. The Cavaliers then finished last in the conference in the 2010–11 season, enduring a 26-game losing streak, the third-longest in NBA history.

Between 2010 and 2014, the team won the top draft pick three times: in 2011 (selecting Kyrie Irving), and again in 2013 and 2014.

After four seasons with Miami, where he won back-to-back titles in 2012 and 2013, James returned to the Cavs in 2014 and led them to four straight NBA Finals appearances. In 2016, the Cavaliers won their first NBA Championship, Cleveland's first major sports title since 1964. That Finals victory over the Golden State Warriors was the first in NBA history where a team came back from a 3–1 series deficit to win. The Cavaliers have made 25 playoff appearances and have won eight Central Division titles, five Eastern Conference titles, and one NBA title.

The Cavaliers started play in the 1970–71 season as an expansion team. They had losing records in each of their first five seasons before winning their first division title in 1976. That 1976 team featured Austin Carr, Bobby "Bingo" Smith, Jim Chones, Dick Snyder, Nate Thurmond, and head coach Bill Fitch. They were remembered for the "Miracle at Richfield," where they beat the Washington Bullets 4–3 in the Eastern Conference Semifinals, winning Game 7, 87–85, on a shot by Snyder with four seconds left. They advanced to the Eastern Conference Finals for the first time but lost 4–2 to the Boston Celtics after Chones broke his toe before the series started. The team made playoff appearances the next two seasons before a six-year drought.

The early 1980s were defined by Ted Stepien's ownership. He traded future draft picks for marginal veteran players, most notably sending a 1982 first-round pick to the Los Angeles Lakers for Don Ford and the 22nd overall pick in 1980. These moves led the NBA to create the "Stepien Rule," which bans teams from trading first-round picks in consecutive years. The Cavaliers went 66–180, fell to the bottom of the league in attendance, and lost $15 million during Stepien's three years. They went through six coaches in that span, including four in the 1981–82 season. The team finished 15–67, and from March to November 1982, they had a 24-game losing streak, then the longest in NBA history. George and Gordon Gund bought the team from Stepien in 1983.

The Cavaliers made the playoffs ten times between 1985 and 1998. Their best regular season to that point came in 1988–89, when they went 57–25 with a team that included Brad Daugherty, Mark Price, Ron Harper, and Larry Nance, coached by Lenny Wilkens. They matched that 57-win mark in 1991–92 and reached the Eastern Conference Finals that year. However, from 1999 to 2005, the Cavaliers missed the playoffs. They finished the 2002–03 season 17–65, tied for the worst record in the NBA.

The Cavaliers had the No. 1 pick in the 2003 NBA draft, selecting LeBron James, a forward from Akron who became a perennial All-Star and four-time NBA MVP. He led the team to its first NBA Finals in 2007 and its first championship in 2016. Dan Gilbert, who has owned the team since 2005, was in charge when they won that title.