One decade provided Cavs fans their most exhilarating highs and devastating lows in the franchise’s 50-year history. LeBron James’ initial departure and eventual return begat the organization’s first championship and the largest block party this city has ever seen.
There were plenty of impactful moments. Not all of them could fit on this list. Among the honorable mentions: The 26-game losing streak the year after LeBron left; the trades that sent away Dion Waiters and brought back J.R. Smith, Iman Shumpert and Timofey Mozgov; the improbable Game 4 win at Chicago in the 2015 Eastern Conference semifinals when LeBron scratched the play and took the final shot. An endless supply of terrific NBA Finals moments. Nevertheless, here are the 10 most impactful moments over the last decade of Cavaliers basketball.
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10. LeBron leaves. Again.
This one didn’t hurt as badly, not after the championship parade. This time it wasn’t an hour-long television spectacle, either, but merely a statement from his agent. LeBron James returned to deliver a championship, and he did. And then he left. Again.
9. David Blatt is fired, replaced with Tyronn Lue
The Cavs were in first place when they stunned the NBA by firing their head coach. But as one member of the organization said in the days after, “At least now we have a chance.” From the players to the front office, the feeling was that Blatt’s unfamiliarity with the culture and the league were holding back the organization — even if it wasn’t apparent in the team’s record. Lue was exactly the coach they needed at the exact time they needed him.
8. Cavs win lottery, draft Andrew Wiggins
There is no Kevin Love without the Wiggins lottery. The Cavs turned a 1.7 percent chance into a franchise-altering draft victory. James returned a few weeks after the draft, and suddenly Love was on his way to Cleveland. The Timberwolves don’t make that trade without Wiggins, who isn’t here without some stunning lottery fortune.
7. Game 5, 2016 NBA Finals
As the Cavaliers fell behind 3-1 in the finals to a team that won 73 games in the regular season, there was a feeling in the locker room that if they could somehow get the series back home for a Game 6, there was no chance they’d lose again in front of the home crowd. Then they could take their chances in a Game 7. The problem was figuring out a way to win Game 5. No Draymond Green for the Warriors certainly helped. Matching 41-point nights from Kyrie Irving and James were even more important. They were the first teammates in finals history to score at least 40 points in a game, setting up the most improbable close to a finals in league history.
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6. Cavs win lottery, draft Kyrie Irving
The mismatched roster, the 26-game losing streak and all those embarrassing nights became a little more tolerable when the Cavs won the lottery and the right to draft Irving. Since the lottery was around the corner from his childhood home, Irving attended and posed for pictures with Nick Gilbert, Dan’s son, prior to the drawing. It’s hard to envision LeBron returning and a championship banner hanging without Irving’s arrival and development in Cleveland.
5. Kyrie Irving traded
Kyrie giveth, Kyrie taketh away. The rest of the NBA is now understanding what the Cavs knew for years: the impact Irving’s moodiness and attitude can have on a franchise. Irving’s trade demand and the return the team received from Boston for him was the first blow to the Cavs’ crumbling powerhouse.
4. The Decision
As the jerseys burned downtown and the city’s anger raged into the night, it would’ve been hard to imagine LeBron’s original departure from Cleveland ranking so low on a decade’s top-10 list of impactful moments. James devastated a franchise, a fan base and an entire city when he left for Miami. It was impossible to see in the moment, but that departure actually gave the organization time to reset and try to build the right way for his potential return. In the moment, however, it just felt like basketball was dead in Cleveland forever.
3. The Parade
Depending on who you want to believe, anywhere from 1 million to 1.3 million people crammed into downtown for a June parade in 2016. Public transportation into downtown was bursting by breakfast. The city failed to set up gates along the parade route, leaving fans within inches of the players and parade cars and slowing progress to a trickle. No one seemed to mind, though. Love felt dehydrated from sitting in the sun. The championship trophy was temporarily misplaced. Ultimately, the party that this city waited 52 years to throw did not disappoint.
2. LeBron returns
James’ “I’m Coming Home” letter in Sports Illustrated undid most (all?) of the damage his departure created. Still, no one with the Cavs really believed James was returning until the moment his agent, Rich Paul, called David Griffin to inform him what was happening. The Cavs were the worst team in the league the four years LeBron was in Miami. They went to four straight finals following his return.
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1. Cavs win championship
The Block, The Shot and The Stop. All three of the Cavs’ stars had their big moments during Game 7 of the 2016 Finals, and the Cavs delivered the most improbable Father’s Day present to dads across Northeast Ohio. No team had ever rallied from a 3-1 deficit in the finals, and certainly no one expected it to happen against a team that won 73 games during the regular season. Regardless of how the championship team disintegrated, that night at Oracle Arena will remain the greatest night in the last 50 years of Cleveland sports history.
(Photo: Jose Carlos Fajardo / Getty Images)