The Cleveland Cavaliers have an intriguing, albeit somewhat top-heavy, top-30 players in franchise history. Let’s get into it.
Let’s start with this: any franchise’s top player list that includes one of the top three or four players to ever play the game is going to carry some weight. But after LeBron James, the list gets much thinner for the Cleveland Cavaliers.
There’s a number of All-Stars, although not that many that were named to the squad on a perennial basis. Plenty of role players and stars that spent short stints of their lengthy careers in Cleveland dot the list.
For this particular list, we’re only considering the seasons played in a Cavaliers uniform. For instance, Shawn Kemp was a monster in Seattle, but only made one of his six All-Star appearances with the Cavaliers. That causes him to slide further down this list than he would on a Seattle SuperSonics/Oklahoma City Thunder list.
With that out of the way, let’s dive into the ranking of the 30 greatest Cavaliers of all-time.
Danny Ferry spent the entire decade of the 1990s with the Cavaliers. He only averaged double-digits in points twice, but was a consistent member of the rotation for his entire time in Cleveland.
Ferry averaged a career-high 13.3 points while starting 79 games for the 1995-96 Cavs, who won 47 games under head coach Mike Fratello before being swept in the first round of the playoffs by the New York Knicks.
The following year, Ferry appeared in all 82 games, starting 48, and averaged 10.6 points per game while shooting 40.1 percent on 3.5 3-point attempts per game.
Ferry left Cleveland and finished his career with three seasons in San Antonio, winning a ring in his final season as a player. He eventually returned to Cleveland as general manager from 2005 to 2010.
Shawn Kemp was named to six consecutive NBA All-Star teams from 1992-98. The first five were with the Seattle SuperSonics, and the sixth was in Cleveland.
Kemp was traded to the Cavs just prior to his age-28 season, which also happened to be his last year as an All-Star. While the 18.5 points and 9.1 rebounds per game over his career in Cleveland is impressive, his rapid decline towards the end of his already short stint with the Cavs, the NBA lockout, and a lack of team success put a cap on his ceiling in any “greatest Cavs of all-time” conversation.
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While Kemp was outstanding in 1997-98 and led Cleveland to a playoff berth (they lost in four games to the Pacers), the 1998-99 lockout meant that Kemp only appeared in 42 out of 50 games. Then, in 1999-00, Kemp’s efficiency and defensive impact took a hit as he slid over to play primarily in the center role for the first time in his career.
Despite playing in all 82 games, Kemp’s age-30 season was not kind to the Cavaliers as a whole, either, as they won just 31 games.
Mo Williams was the first All-Star that LeBron James played with on a team that reached the playoffs. (Both James and Zydrunas Ilgauskas were named to the Eastern Conference All-Star team in 2004-05, but the Cavaliers went just 42-40 and missed the playoffs.)
Williams was 26 years old when acquired via trade from the Milwaukee Bucks prior to the 2008-09 season and proceeded to have the best season of his career. He averaged 17.8 points and 4.1 assists per game in 81 starts, shooting 43.6 percent from beyond the arc.
The Cavaliers made it to the Eastern Conference Finals before losing to Dwight Howard‘s Orlando Magic in six games. The next year, Williams came back down to earth somewhat and had a less efficient season, but still managed to put up 15.8 points and 5.3 assists per contest.
Williams was traded to the Clippers midway through the 2010-11 season and after bouncing back to Utah, where he started his NBA career, and then to Portland, Minnesota, and Charlotte, finished his career with a 41-game swan song in 2015-16 as the Cavs won the championship.
The Cleveland Cavaliers went six straight seasons without reaching postseason play from 1978 to 1984. Mike Mitchell was on the first four of those squads.
Even still, Mitchell made a quick impact and was named to the All-Star team in the 1980-81 campaign, his third in the NBA.
After averaging 10.7 points and 4.1 rebounds per game as a rookie, Mitchell put up 23.4 points and 6.7 rebounds per contest over the next two seasons, including his All-Star season, before being shipped to San Antonio just prior to Christmas in 1981. (Fun fact: Mitchell played in a league-leading 84 regular season games that season due to when the trade took place.)
Despite averaging 19.8 points per game over a 10-year career, Mitchell was never named to another All-Star game. But his efficient scoring (49.5 percent from the field with the Cavs) and big numbers over three-and-a-half years in a Cavaliers uniform was enough to get him on to this list.
Before heading to the Clippers and ultimately making a name for himself while winning three rings with Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls and two rings with the Los Angeles Lakers in the twilight of his career, Ron Harper spent the first three-plus years of a 15-year career in Cleveland.
Harper was the eighth-overall selection in the 1986 draft by the Cavaliers, and immediately made an impact, winning two Rookie of the Month awards and being named to the All-Rookie First Team in 1986-87. He started all 82 games while averaging 22.9 points, 4.8 rebounds, 4.8 assists, and 2.5 steals per contest but lost out to Indiana’s Chuck Person, who helped lead the Pacers to 41 wins and a playoff berth while the Cavs stumbled to just 31 wins.
Harper only appeared in 57 games in his second season however, although the Cavaliers made the postseason. He had a bounce-back year in 1988-89, as Cleveland went 57-25 behind his 18.6 points per game, but the Cavs once again lost in the first round come playoff time.
He was traded to the Los Angeles Clippers just seven games into the 1989-90 season, and by 1994 was in Chicago where he would enjoy playing on a series of dominant teams before finishing up with the Lakers from 1999-2001.
After playing just 201 minutes as a rookie with the Los Angeles Lakers, Jim Cleamons was traded to Cleveland in exchange for a second-round draft pick prior to the 1972-73 season.
Cleamons immediately became an important cog in the Cavaliers’ rotation, averaging 28.1 minutes per game over five full seasons with the team.
He averaged more than five assists per game in three consecutive seasons, running the point for the 1975-76 Eastern Conference Finals squad and the 1976-77 team that lost in the first round of the playoffs.
Cleamons was a solid player for a half-decade in Cleveland, and saw his overall numbers dip significantly after joining the New York Knicks and then the Washington Bullets to finish his career.
Tyrone Hill was the 11th overall draft pick by Golden State in 1990 and after three years with the Warriors was traded to Cleveland for a first-round pick.
Hill played in 57 games in 1993-94 before appearing in 70 games and being named an All-Star during the 1994-95 campaign. He averaged 13.8 points and 10.9 rebounds that season for a 43-win Cavs team that lost in a best-of-five first-round playoff series the Knicks in the 1995 playoffs.
The big man played two more injury-riddled seasons with the Cavaliers but continued to be an outstanding defensive player.
Late in his career, Hill was traded back to Cleveland. The Cavs were awful, winning just 29 games in 2001-02 and finishing the following season with just 17 wins, although they waived Hill to allow him to skip town and join the contending Philadelphia 76ers, which allowed him to have one more playoff run.
Phil Hubbard is one of the longest-tenured Cavaliers players on this list, and solid play over virtually that entire span is enough to get him on to this list.
Hubbard started 249 of his 469 games in a Cavs uniform, including 55 games for the 1984-85 squad that squeaked into the playoffs with a 36-46 record under head coach George Karl, ultimately losing to Boston in the first round of postseason play. Hubbard averaged a career-high 15.8 points and 6.3 rebounds per game that season.
The Cavs didn’t return to the playoffs until the 1987-88 season, and Hubbard only appeared in four more playoff games over the rest of his career in Cleveland.
He was a fixture for a series of mostly bad Cavaliers teams, but his career in Cleveland spanned nearly a decade with solid numbers throughout.
Jim Brewer was the second-overall pick in the 1973 NBA Draft by the Cavaliers after receiving second-team All-American honors at the University of Minnesota as a senior.
Brewer was exceedingly durable, playing in 462 out of 465 possible games in his career in a Cavs uniform. He averaged 7.5 points and 7.7 rebounds, finishing top-10 in the league in rebounding during the 1975-76 campaign.
After being traded to Detroit in 1979, Brewer was then shipped to Portland and ultimately L.A., where he won the 1982 NBA Championship as a member of the Lakers bench.
Brewer’s presence defensively and on the boards for the better part of the 1970s is enough to land him the No. 22 spot on this list. (Oh, and he’s Doc Rivers’ uncle, for whatever that’s worth.)
The former Kansas Jayhawk was drafted in the No. 4 spot by the Memphis Grizzlies but was traded to Orlando right before the deadline during his rookie season.
He was traded again after Year Two, this time to Cleveland where he would spend the next three-plus seasons — the longest period of time that Gooden would spend with any team in his NBA career.
Gooden started in 290 of 292 games for the Cavs, averaging 11.9 points and 8.6 rebounds per contest. He started a career-high 80 games twice in Cleveland, including in the 2006-07 season that saw the Cavs reach the NBA Finals before getting swept by San Antonio.
Gooden started in 20 postseason games that season, averaging 11.4 points and eight rebounds during the playoffs.
He was shipped to Chicago as part of a massive three-team trade that brought Delonte West, Wally Szczerbiak, Joe Smith, and Ben Wallace to the Cavaliers.
Foots Walker helped lead the Cavs to four straight 40-plus win seasons in the mid-1970s, including a trip to the Eastern Conference Finals in 1975-76.
Walker didn’t become the full-time starter until 1977-78, when Cleveland won 43 games and lost in the first round of the playoffs. The following year, he averaged a career-high 10.1 points per game on a career-high 46.4 percent shooting from the floor while dishing out 5.8 assists per contest while the Cavs only won 30 games.
The next season saw the Cavaliers miss the playoffs once again, but Walker had his best assist season, averaging eight helpers per game in 1979-80.
Consistency at the point guard position for a perennially competitive team in the 70’s is enough to get Foots into the top-20 on the list.
Wesley Person was ahead of his time when it came to 3-point shooting proficiency, shooting 41.8 percent for his career from long-range, including 43.6 percent as a rookie with the Phoenix Suns in 1994-95.
Person was traded to the Cavaliers prior to his third season in the NBA and promptly scored a then-career-high 14.7 points per game in 1997-98 while shooting 43 percent from beyond the arc while starting in all 82 regular season games. The 47-win Cavs were swept out of the playoffs by the Knicks in the first round, however.
Person saw his numbers dip in the lockout-shortened 1998-99 campaign and again in 1999-00 and 2000-01, but bounced back to average a career-high 15.1 points per game while shooting 44.4 percent on threes while launching 4.1 attempts per game — a lot of 3-point attempts for the early 00s.
While the team didn’t enjoy much success in the four years following Person’s first year in Cleveland, he was one of the best shooters in franchise history and deserves to appear on this list.
Bingo Smith started and ended his career with 75 and 70-game stints, respectively, with the NBA franchise in San Diego, but the years in between were spent in Cleveland. Solid bookends to a productive career, I guess.
Smith was known for launching jumpers from today’s 3-point range, although the arc wasn’t added to the court until 1979-80, at the tail-end of Bingo’s career.
He still managed to shoot 45.2 percent from the floor for his career in Cleveland, averaging north of 14 points five times in 10 seasons.
The Cavs were awful as an expansion team for the first four years of the decade, but Smith was a vital part of the turnaround that began with a 40-win season in 1974-75. He was a key member of the playoff squads of the next three years.
Smith ranks third all-time in games played for the franchise, fifth in minutes played, and sixth in points scored.
The name Craig Ehlo is surely known by most NBA fans as the player guarding Michael Jordan in the first round of the 1989 playoffs when M.J. hit “The Shot”.
But Ehlo was a solid player in his own right — the 17th-best in Cleveland Cavaliers history, in fact.
The Shot came at the end of Ehlo’s third season in Cleveland, a year in which he averaged 7.4 points in just 22.8 minutes per game across all 82 contests. The following season, he scored 13.6 points while starting 64 games with the Cavs.
Over his first three years with the Cavaliers, Ehlo averaged just seven points per game while appearing in 205 games and only starting 46. In his last four years in Cleveland, Ehlo started 267 of 308 games and put up 11.9 points, five rounds, and four assists per contest.
Prior to joining the Cavs, Ehlo appeared in the 1986 Finals in a losing cause for the Houston Rockets, who had drafted him in the third round of the 1983 NBA Draft.
At No. 16 on the countdown, we find one of the best players of all-time never to be named to an All-Star team.
Andre Miller was the eighth-overall selection in the 1999 NBA Draft and stepped into a starting role for the struggling Cavs midway through his rookie season. After putting up 11.1 points and 5.8 assists per game in his first year in the league, Miller took off in Year Two.
Miller averaged 15.8 points and eight assist per game as a sophomore, and led the league with 10.9 assists per game in his third year in the league while also scoring 16.5 points per game.
The Cavs actually got worse as a team, going from 32 wins in Miller’s rookie year to 30 in 2000-01 and just 27 wins in 2001-02. Miller was shipped to the Clippers in a trade that netted the Cavaliers Darius Miles in the summer of 2002.
Miller went on to play for a total of nine NBA franchises and didn’t retire until after turning 40 years old during the 2015-16 season. He played in a total of 68 career playoff games (none for the Cavs, of course), during which he averaged 12.6 points and 4.1 assists per game but never got past the second round.
Here’s another contributor to the 1970s teams that made three consecutive playoff appearances, including reaching the 1976 Eastern Conference Finals.
Campy Russell was the second-leading scorer on that 1975-76 team and tallied a team-high 16.5 points per game for the 43-win squad the following season. He followed that up by scoring 19.4 points per game in 1977-78 and 21.9 points per contest while making the All-Star team in 1978-79, his age-27 season.
Russell only played one more season in Cleveland before heading to New York, where his play began to decline as a member of the Knicks.
He missed both the 1982-83 and 1983-84 seasons due to injury before appearing in three final games in a Cavs uniform at the start of the 1984-85 campaign.
Jim Chones was the anchor in the middle for the Cavaliers playoff teams of the 1970s, landing in the league’s top-10 in blocks and defensive rebounds in a couple of separate seasons during the decade.
Chones wasn’t a slouch offensively, either, leading the team in points per game in 1975-76 and finishing in the top-four on the team in the same category in each of his other four seasons in Cleveland.
The Cavs traded Chones to Los Angeles after just prior to the 1979-80 season, where he was a member of the Lakers’ rotation as they won the 1980 NBA Championship. He retired after spending a second season in L.A. and the final year of his career in Washington.
World B. Free was a career 20.3 point-per-game scorer, notching eight seasons with per-game averaged north of 20, including all three-plus seasons he spent in a Cavaliers uniform.
Free played for Philadelphia, San Diego, and Golden State before heading to Cleveland during the 1982-83 campaign, which was his age-29 season.
Free made his only All-Star team with San Diego back in 1979-80, but was the leading scorer on the 1984-85 squad that made the playoffs with a 36-46 record before being defeated in the first round of the playoffs by Boston.
He left Cleveland after averaging 23.4 points per game during the 1985-86 season and signed with Philadelphia as a free agent, but averaged just 6.3 points per contest over the last two seasons of his career between the 76ers and the Rockets.
Anderson Varejao was the first pick of the second round by Orlando back in 2004 and was shipped to Cleveland later that summer. He wouldn’t leave the Cavs until 2016.
Varejao wore a Cavs jersey throughout the franchise’s rise to perennial Eastern Conference contender with LeBron James as well as the lean years after James left for Miami. Then, he was still there when The King returned, although his nagging injuries had finally caught up to him to the point that he was unavailable for the playoffs.
When Varejao was on the court, however, he was the model of consistency on both ends of the court. A solid offensive player who only reached double-digits in per-game scoring twice (10.8 points per game in 2011-12 and 14.1 in 2012-13), he was always an above-average defender.
He only played more than 65 games three times in his 13-year career, however, and all three instances came in his first six years in the league.
Varejao remains the only player to have played for both NBA Finals teams in the same season, having done so for Golden State in 2015-16 after joining the Warriors during the season. Of course that was the season that Cleveland won the title, but Varejao was fortunate enough to receive a ring from the Warriors the following year even after being waived in February of 2017.
We’ve arrived at our first current member of the Cavaliers on our list.
Tristan Thompson was the fourth-overall selection in the 2011 NBA Draft — the same year that they selected Anthony Bennett at No. 1. In short: the Thompson pick was marginally better.
Thompson played for a pair of sub-30-win teams under Byron Scott and a 33-win team under Mike Brown before LeBron James rejoined his hometown squad in 2014. After starting all 82 games in his second and third years in the league, Thompson appeared in all 82 when LeBron (and Kevin Love) came to town for the 2014-15 season but only started 15 contests.
That meant that his per-game averages dipped, but his efficiency soared. After shooting 47.3 percent from the field through his first three seasons in the NBA, Thompson has shot a whopping 57.5 percent since James and Love came to town.
Thompson was, of course, a vital member of the rotation when the Cavaliers won the 2016 Finals. After falling into and out of favor with coach Tyronn Lue during the 2017-18 campaign, Thompson played in just 53 regular season games, averaging 5.8 points and 6.6 rebounds per contest.
Mr. Cavalier, Austin Carr, spent the first nine years of his 10-year NBA career in a Cavs uniform.
Carr was the first-overall selection in the 1971 NBA Draft and stepped in to average 21.2 points per game over 43 contests as a rookie. Then, 20.5 points per game over all 82 games in Year Two.
Carr’s third NBA season brought his lone All-Star appearance as he scored 21.9 points per game on 44.5 percent shooting. The Cavs won just 29 games however, and Carr ultimately only appeared in 18 playoff games for Cleveland over nine seasons, with 13 of them coming in the 49-win season that saw them lose in the Eastern Conference Finals.
The final year of Carr’s career was split between Dallas and Washington, but he’s been involved with the Cavaliers’ organization ever since his retirement after the 1980-81 season.
Admittedly, there may be some controversy with slotting the much-maligned Kevin Love this high on the list of the best-ever Cavaliers.
But, then again, he’s also the first player to appear on the list to be named to multiple All-Star teams as a member of the Cavs, and he’s only the second so far that wears a championship ring. He’s averaged a double-double over four seasons in Cleveland, and only some durability issues and an ever-evolving offensive role have kept him from easily cracking the top-five.
Love has missed 37 out of 328 possible regular season games and was injured in an odd way back in 2014 and missed all but four playoff games that season. When healthy, however, Love has been an All-Star-caliber player at both power forward (2016-17) and center (2017-18).
Love remains a solid team defender and effective offensive player (he shot 41.5 percent from beyond the arc in 2017-18, the second-best mark in his career), it remains to be seen what happens with the four-time All-Star moving forward. There are two years on Love’s contract, but LeBron James could choose to walk away as soon as the summer of 2018.
Terrell Brandon was selected 11th overall in the 1991 NBA Draft by Cleveland and spent six productive seasons in a Cavs uniform.
While his overall per-game averages with the Cavaliers don’t appear to be much to write home about, he spent the first three seasons of his career primarily coming off the bench. He started 41 of 67 games in 1994-95, his fourth year in the league, and all 153 games in which he appeared the following two seasons. He was named to the All-Star team in both the 1995-96 and 1996-97 campaigns.
In his two All-Star seasons, Brandon averaged a combined 19.4 points and 6.4 assists while shooting 37.9 percent from 3-point range. The Cavs won 47 games in 1995-96 but were swept in the first round by the Knicks, and had 42 wins the following season when the missed the playoffs.
Brandon was traded to Milwaukee the following summer as part of the trade that brought Shawn Kemp to Cleveland.
Regardless of how the marriage ended, Kyrie Irving remains one of the seven-best players to don a Cavaliers uniform.
Irving was selected first-overall in 2011 despite only having played in 11 games in his one and only season at Duke University. His oft-injured ways continued into the NBA, as Irving missed 15 games in the lockout-shortened 2011-12 season and proceeded to play in just (80.4 percent) 330 of 410 possible games over the next five seasons.
But when Irving was on the court, he was fun to watch. And once LeBron James returned to Cleveland in 2014-15, Irving became dynamic as the team’s No. 2 option.
Irving might have made two All-Star teams before The King arrived, but he was a far more effective player with James in the fold, shooting 46.8 percent from the field and a career-best 41.5 percent from beyond the arc in 2014-15.
The Cavs went to the NBA Finals with David Blatt as head coach and lost to Golden State, but Irving got his ring the next year despite only playing in 53 regular season games and not being named to the All-Star team.
Irving was unceremoniously shipped to Boston in the summer of 2017, reportedly after having requested a trade.
Zydrunas Ilgauskas was the 20th overall selection in the 1996 NBA Draft out of Lithuania. He came stateside in 1997 and immediately had an impact, playing in all 82 games as a rookie and averaging 13.9 points, 8.8 rebounds, and 1.6 blocks per game.
After only playing in five games in his second season, Ilgauskas went down with a dreaded foot injury that caused him to miss the entire 1999-00 campaign. Then, just 24 games played in 2000-01, and 62, including just 23 starts, the following year.
But by 2002-03, Ilgauskas played in 81 of 82 games in his age-27 season, averaging a career-high 17.2 points in 30 minutes per game. He was named to the All-Star team, and made the squad again two years later.
He was a key cog on the LeBron James-led teams during The King’s first tour in a Cavs uniform, appearing in 67 playoff games from 2005-10, averaging 10.7 points and 7.4 rebounds per game.
Though he finished his career with James in Miami, Ilgauskas still managed to spend 12 of his 13 NBA seasons in the same uniform, and there’s something to said for that.
Williams was a second-round selection by the Cavaliers in 1985 and stepped into the starting lineup immediately as a rookie.
He started 80 games in his first season, averaging 14.6 points and 7.9 rebounds on 48.5 percent shooting to go along with 2.1 blocks per game and was named to the All-Rookie First Team. After a brief dip in playing time over the next two seasons, Williams averaged a career-high 16.8 points in 1989-90 while averaging 33.9 minutes per game despite only starting 29 of the 82 contests.
Williams continued to average double-figures in scoring through the balance of his career in Cleveland, but his calling card was defense. Three separate times, Williams averaged more than two blocks per game while in a Cavs uniform, and anchored what was typically a top-tier NBA defense for a number of years.
Hot Rod finished his career with three years in Phoenix and one in Dallas before retiring after the 1999-00 season.
In 1981, more than 11 years before his son, Larry Nance, Jr., was even born, Larry Nance, Sr. was drafted by the Phoenix Suns with the 27th pick of the first round.
After averaging 17.3 points per game over five-plus season in Phoenix and being named to the All-Star team in 1984-85, Nance was shipped to Cleveland midway through the 1987-88 campaign. He played a key role on that year’s Cavs team that lost in a decisive Game 5 in the first round of the playoffs to Michael Jordan’s Chicago Bulls.
Nance made the All-Star team the next year and again in 1992-93. Cleveland was in the playoffs in all but two of his seven years in Cavaliers threads.
Nance was every bit as productive in postseason play, putting up 16.9 points, eight rebounds, and 2.3 blocks per game over 41 playoff games in his Cavs career. Unfortunately, the Cavs lost in five games in the first round during his first three years in Cleveland and didn’t make the playoffs in 1990-91.
In the 1992 playoffs, however, Nance and the Cavs finally got past the first round. They beat the Nets, and then the Celtics in the second round before falling once again to the Bulls, although this time in the Eastern Conference Finals. That was as far as Nance would get in the playoffs prior to his retirement after the 1993-94 season.
Mark Price was the first pick of the second round in 1986 by the Dallas Mavericks and was sent off to Cleveland for a future second-round selection. Price would spend the first nine years of a 12 year career with the Cavaliers.
The OK Kid from small town Oklahoma came off the bench as a rookie, but after joining the starting lineup in 1987-88, never looked back. Price averaged at least 16 points per game in seven consecutive seasons from 1987 to 1994 and was named to four All-Star teams, including three consecutively.
He was a career 40.9 percent 3-point shooter in a Cavs uniform, including hitting on 44.1 percent of threes in 1988-89, his first year as an All-Star.
Price was part of many of the Brad Daugherty, Larry Nance, and Hot Rod Williams teams that were consistently in the playoffs but always seemed to run into M.J and the Bulls. They weren’t along in that regard, of course.
Price was eventually sent to Washington after a slight dip in performance in 1994-95, which was his age-30 season. The trade netted a first-round pick that was later used to select Vitaly Potapenko.
If not for recurring back problems that necessitated an early retirement, Brad Daugherty would have had a real shot at reaching the Hall of Fame.
In just eight seasons in Cleveland, Daugherty was named to five All-Star teams while putting up 9 points and 9.5 rebounds per game, including averaging a double-double in each of his last four seasons, three of which were 20-plus point, 10-plus rebound campaigns.
Along with Hot Rod Williams and Ron Harper, Daugherty was named to the 1986-87 NBA All-Rookie team after starting all 80 games in which he played. After his rookie year, Daugherty was an NBA All-Star in every season except 1989-90, when he only appeared in 41 games, and his final season, when he played in just 50 contests.
Daugherty was ultra-efficient, shooting better than 50 percent from the field in every single one of his All-Star campaigns, plus his rookie season. As a career 74.7 percent free throw shooter, Daugherty led the league in true shooting percentage in 1992-93 with a mark of 63.5.
The career-long Cav was equally effective in the playoffs, averaging 19.1 points, 10.2 rebounds, 3.3 assists, and one block per game over 41 career contests.
His last game played was in 1994, at the age of 28. Daugherty didn’t officially retire until two years later, but never again donned an NBA uniform.
In a non-twist, the No. 1 player in Cleveland Cavaliers history also happens to be one of the best players in NBA history.
LeBron James gambled a bit on his legacy after leaving Cleveland, his “hometown” team following the 2009-10 season. (LeBron, of course, grew up in nearby Akron.) After only playing in the Finals once in his first seven seasons in the league, James decided to “take his talents to South Beach” and join the Miami Heat.
James did win his title in Miami — two, in fact — but came back to Cleveland in a sign-and-trade deal in the summer of 2014. After being more of a volume scorer (shooting 47.5 percent from the field while averaging 27.8 points per game isn’t exactly inefficient, of course) in Act One as a Cavalier, LeBron has grown into more of a facilitator that picks his spots in Act Two.
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From 2014 through the 2018 regular season, James has averaged 26.1 points per game but his field goal percentage has shot up to 52.6. He’s also taking (and making more threes), knocking down 35.1 percent over the past four campaigns. His assists have gone up to eight per contest.
James has won the NBA Finals MVP award in each of the three Finals in which his team has won, and spent the 2017-2018 campaign dragging a largely dysfunctional and extremely hot-and-cold group to 50 wins and the No. 4 seed in the Eastern Conference.
LeBron is firmly in the conversation as one of the best two or three players of all-time, and best-ever isn’t out of the question as he enters his age-34 season in the fall of 2018.
Next: LeBron James ranked the most dominant NBA player of the millennium
And while LeBron is the only surefire Hall of Famer on this list of 30 players, he’s a dang good one to have at the top of it.