Cleveland Cavaliers

The **Cleveland Cavaliers** are an American professional basketball team in the National Basketball Association (NBA) in Cleveland, Ohio. They began playing in 1970. They play their home games at Rocket Arena, originally known as Gund Arena and later as Quicken Loans Arena and Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse. They now have one NBA championship, which was won in 2016 with the help of LeBron James.

## History

For years, the team had little success, although with players such as Brad Daugherty and Mark Price, they had some success in the late 1980s and early 1990s. They reached the Eastern Conference Finals in 1992, where they lost to Michael Jordan's Chicago Bulls.

In 2003, the Cavaliers won the NBA Draft lottery, and chose LeBron James with the first pick. James became a star, and the Cavaliers reached the NBA Finals for the first time in 2007. However, they lost to the San Antonio Spurs, 4 games to 0. This was the only time that the Cavaliers reached the NBA Finals until 2015

James's contract ran out in 2010, and James decided not to sign another contract with the Cavaliers. Instead, he would play for the Miami Heat, lead the team to four straight Finals, and win  two of them. The Cavaliers were immediately a worse team. At one point during the 2010-2011 season, they lost 26 games in a row. This set a new NBA record for the most games lost in a row.

After the 2013–14 season, James' contract with the Heat ended, and he decided to return to the Cavaliers. The team, which in the meantime had added rising star Kyrie Irving and would soon add another star in Kevin Love, once again became NBA title contenders. Despite Irving and Love being out with injuries, LeBron helped the Cavaliers to a 2–1 lead but lost the 2015 NBA Finals to the Golden State Warriors in six games, and won a rematch against the Warriors in the 2016 Finals after coming down 3–1 being the first team in the NBA Finals to do so. The championship was the first ever for the Cavaliers, and the first for any major sports team in Cleveland in over 50 years. However, the Cavaliers lost to the Warriors in 2017 and 2018 Finals. James once again left the Cavaliers and joined the Los Angeles Lakers where he won his fourth championship in his second season with the team.

They are now lead by Donovan Mitchell, Darius Garland, and Evan Mobley.

## Infobox (basketball club)

- **name**: Cleveland Cavaliers
- **current**: 2023–24 Cleveland Cavaliers season
- **logo**: File:Cleveland Cavaliers logo.svg
- **imagesize**: 100
- **conference**: Eastern Conference (NBA), Eastern
- **division**: Central Division (NBA), Central
- **founded**: 1970
- **history**: **Cleveland Cavaliers**
1970–present
- **arena**: Rocket Arena
- **location**: Cleveland, Cleveland, Ohio
- **colors**: Wine (color), Wine, gold, black

- **owner**: Dan Gilbert (businessman), Dan Gilbert (majority)
Gordon Gund, Usher (singer), Usher Raymond (minority) Myles Garrett
 (minority)
- **gm**: Koby Altman
- **coach**: J. B. Bickerstaff
- **affiliation**: Cleveland Charge
- **league champs**: **1 ** (2016 NBA Finals, 2016)
- **conf champs**: **5** (2007 NBA Playoffs, 2007, 2015 NBA Playoffs, 2015, 2016 NBA Playoffs, 2016, 2017 NBA Playoffs, 2017, 2018 NBA Playoffs, 2018)
- **div champs**: **7** (1975–76 NBA season, 1976, 2008–09 NBA season, 2009, 2009–10 NBA season, 2010, 2014–15 NBA season, 2015, 2015–16 NBA season, 2016, 2016–17 NBA season, 2017, 2017–18 NBA season, 2018)
- **ret nums**: **8** (Bill Russell, 6, Bingo Smith, 7, Zydrunas Ilgauskas, 11, Larry Nance, 22, Mark Price, 25, Austin Carr, 34, Nate Thurmond, 42, Brad Daugherty (basketball), 43)
- **1 title**: Association
- **1 pattern b**: _clevelandcavaliers_association2223
- **1 pattern s**: _clevelandcavaliers_association2223
- **2 title**: Icon
- **2 pattern b**: _clevelandcavaliers_icon2223
- **2 pattern s**: _clevelandcavaliers_icon2223
- **3 title**: Statement
- **3 pattern b**: _clevelandcavaliers_statemement2223
- **3 pattern s**: _clevelandcavaliers_statement2223