Cleveland Cavaliers: Looking back at the historic 1986 NBA Draft

Looking back at the historic 1986 NBA Draft: The Picks

Roy Hinson, the third year forward that the Cavs had drafted in 1983 at pick No. 20 out of Rutgers University, had his best season as a pro during the 1985-86 season, averaging just under twenty points and pulling in eight boards per game. Cleveland had the No. 8 pick in the upcoming 1986 NBA Draft. Embry, now the GM of the Cavs, was able to somehow convince the Philadelphia 76ers to part with its No. 1 pick for the aforementioned Hinson and $800, 000 in cash. That was it! Really!

Now to be fair to 76ers, they weren’t sold on the top talent available that year in the draft and their front office thought the Cavs’ Hinson would be a comparable replacement for any draft pick. The 76ers’ story at this juncture is even more bizarre too as they also traded away the great Hall of Famer and big man Moses Malone that same day.

Brad Daugherty, the big 7-footer out of North Carolina, was being considered by most analysts at the time to go No. 1. Embry thought that same thing and knew the Cavs needed a big man to be the center piece to their team. Len Bias, the talented player from Maryland was also a possibility for the Cavs at No. 1 but Bias ended up going second to the Boston Celtics. A week after Bias was drafted he died tragically from a drug overdose.

The Cavs took Daugherty at No. 1. They still had their No. 8 pick and with that they took Ron Harper, a very talented 6’6″ player from Embry’s old stomping grounds Miami (OH) University. Harper became a huge piece to the Cavs’ initial ride of success. In a story for a later time, Harper was traded by the Cavs surprisingly in November of 1989 to the LA Clippers.

The Cavs’ GM still was manipulating the draft. The Dallas Mavericks took a young guard from Georgia Tech named Mark Price with the first pick of the second round at No. 25, but Embry made a deal with the Mavericks, giving them a 2nd round pick in 1989 for the rights to Price. Cleveland had their own 2nd round pick at No. 29 where they took another guard named Johnny Newman from the Richmond Spiders.

Back in the previous 1985 draft the Cavs had picked up a post player named John “Hot Rod” Williams. He didn’t play in 1985 because he had been part of an investigation at Tulane University where he and his team were being looked at for a gambling situation. Williams was never charged with anything.

At this point the Cavs had picked up Daugherty, Harper, Price, Newman and Williams. In January of 1987, during that first year of them playing together, they also picked up Craig Ehlo as a free agent from the Houston Rockets.

In the following 1987 draft the Cavs picked up a young kid named Kevin Johnson who went onto his own fame with the Phoenix Suns. That happened because the Cavs traded Johnson and fellow Cavaliers players Mark West and Tyrone Corbin to the Suns in February of 1988 for the rights to Larry Nance Sr. and Mike Sanders. It was the final piece to the puzzle for these young Cavs to pick up a talented veteran like Nance to help them down that road of winning.