The Cleveland Cavaliers won their only title in the 2010s, reaching the NBA Finals four times with LeBron James. In the 2000s they made their first trip to the NBA Finals, having drafted the greatest player in franchise history in 2003. Yet the Cavs of the 1990s won significantly more games than they did in either decade since.
Cleveland racked up 434 wins in the 1990s, for our purposes defined as the 1989-90 season through the 1998-99 season. That was more than the 396 they won in the 2000s or the 358 they won in the 2010s. The biggest reason for this was the presence of a number of franchise icons, names well known to long-time Cleveland fans.
The Cleveland Cavaliers had an up-and-down decade as their greatest generation aged out. Franchise icons fill the Cavs’ All-1990s Team.
That includes the head coach, as Hall of Fame coach Lenny Wilkens still guided the team into the first few seasons of the decade. The Cavs set a franchise record for wins in a season under Wilkens in 1991-92, fighting their way to the Eastern Conference Finals before losing, yet again, to Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls.
Five times during the late ’80s and early ’90s the Bulls eliminated the Cavaliers from the playoffs, stopping the team’s shot at contention in its tracks. The Cavs were never title favorites, never the top seed, but they were good enough to have a shot if Jordan hadn’t been around — a familiar refrain for every Eastern Conference team during his career.
The mid-90s saw the Cavs retool as they tried to replace longtime stars with new faces, and they posted a winning record every season but one from 1989-90 to 1997-98, when the wheels finally came off in the lockout-shortened season and they entered the stretch of losing that would eventually net them LeBron James.
Which players performed the best for the Cleveland Cavaliers during the 1990s? We’ll start with a very familiar name and go from there, outlining the clear All-Decade Team for the franchise.
Cavs’ All-1990s Team: G – Mark Price
The conversation of greatest point guard in Cleveland Cavaliers history comes down to two players: Kyrie Irving and Mark Price. Irving has the more iconic shot, the title and the same four All-Star appearances. Even so, if you ask any Cleveland fan older than 30 for their pick, they will almost certainly take Mark Price every time.
Price was as steady as they come, a guard who could score from all three levels and distribute the basketball. He was the 25th overall pick in the 1986 NBA Draft by the Cavs, and by his second season he was averaging 16 points and 6.0 assists per game as the starting point guard on a playoff team.
By the 1990s Price was firmly entrenched as one of the league’s best point guards, making an All-NBA team three straight years from 1992 to 1994, including the first team in 1993, and finishing as a Top 10 MVP candidate all three years as well. He was one of the league’s best shooters, hitting 40.2 percent of his career 3-pointers and three times leading the NBA in free-throw shooting, finishing 90.4 percent for his career. He was the first player after Larry Bird to make the “50-40-90” club, shooting 50 percent from the field, 40 percent from 3 and 90 percent from the line.
No Cavaliers player totaled more win shares than Price in the 1990s, and he lead the team in most advanced metrics as well. If major knee injuries hadn’t built on each other to sap his athleticism and shorten his prime, Price could be looked at as one of the all-time point guards. As it is, he’ll settle for the leader of the All-1990s team for the Cavs.
Cavs’ All-1990s Team: G – Terrell Brandon
In the 1991 NBA Draft, armed with the 11th overall pick, the Cleveland Cavaliers drafted point guard Terrell Brandon. Likely seen as insurance if Mark Price couldn’t recover from his knee injury, Brandon settled in as Price’s backup for a few years. In 1995-95 he started in Price’s absences and the following year took the reigns when Price was traded to the Washington Bullets.
Brandon didn’t look back, averaging 19.3 points and 6.5 assists as the full-time starting point guard. He made his first of two consecutive All-Star teams, dazzling teams with his finishing and following in Price’s footsteps as an elite free-throw shooter. Defensively he was a magnet for steals and leveraged his athleticism to be an impact player on a pair of successful Cavs teams as a starter.
In a league where the elite point guards of the 1980s and early 1990s were fading and a new generation hadn’t yet stepped into their place (and no one liked John Stockton for some reason), Brandon stood out more than he otherwise would have. Sports Illustrated granted him their cover spot, anointing him the “Best Point Guard In the NBA” in February of 1997.
https://twitter.com/TodayInSports3/status/1359550279771914240?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1359550279771914240%7Ctwgr%5E%7Ctwcon%5Es1_&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ffactoryofsadness.co%2F2021%2F02%2F10%2Fcavs-terrell-brandon-really-wasnt-the-best-point-guard-in-the-nba%2F
This title didn’t really hold water then, with Stockton and Gary Payton around, but it highlights just how well Brandon played for the Cavs in the middle of the decade. Cleveland parlayed his success into a trade for Shawn Kemp in 1997, just seven months after the cover story.
His combination of offense and defense acquitted itself well looking back on his time in Cleveland, and his 16.7 points per 100 possessions above a replacement player (Value over Replacement Player, or VORP) was second in the decade behind just Price. The Cavs were blessed with two of the best point guards of the decade.
Larry Nance, Cleveland Cavaliers. (Photo by Focus on Sport/Getty Images)
Cavs’ All-1990s Team: F – Larry Nance
Not to be confused with his athletic son Larry Nance Jr. who played for the Cavs very recently, Larry Nance Sr. was an impact player for the Cavaliers in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The team flipped a high-upside guard named Kevin Johnson to the Phoenix Suns for Nance, a move that truly worked as a win-win for both sides.
One of the greatest dunkers of all time, the first thing you noticed about Larry Nance was his athleticism; he could positively leap out of the gym. The second thing you noticed was that your surefire layup had been blocked into the stands when Nance came out of nowhere to provide the rejection.
One of the best defensive players in the league, Nance made three All-Defensive teams, two falling in the ’90s. He finished in the top 6 in blocks per game three times in the decade, and for his career his 2.2 blocks per game average ranks 20th all-time.
Nance made the All-Star Game in 1993, a season when he averaged 16.5 points, 8.7 rebounds and 2.6 blocks per game. His athleticism and desire to dunk the ball helped him be an efficient scorer, and he was an underrated passer who would likely have averaged more assists if he hadn’t been playing alongside Mark Price.
Only LeBron James has a claim better than Nance’s for best defensive player in team history, as Nance was simply a monster on that end. The team success the Cavs had during the decade was propelled by Nance’s elite defense, and he is a no-brainer selection for the All-Decade Team.
Cavs’ All-1990s Team: F – Hot Rod Williams
The Cleveland Cavaliers of the late 1980s and early 1990s had one of the best big-man combinations in the league, with offensive powerhouse Brad Daugherty at center and defensive marvel Larry Nance at power forward. The beauty of Cleveland’s roster was that when either sat the Cavs could insert John “Hot Rod” Williams into the game as a 6th Man.
The 6’11” Williams was a star at Tulane before the Cavs took him as a late second-round pick in the loaded 1985 NBA Draft. He was an immediate starter, dropping 14.6 points, 7.9 rebounds, and 2.1 blocks per game as a rookie. The team moved him to the bench during his second season, and he became one of the league’s best bench players over the next half-decade before moving back into the starting lineup in 1993-94.
Williams totaled 37.4 win shares for the team in the 1990s, fourth among all Cavs players, averaging a double-double despite coming off the bench for over half of his games. The team re-signed him at the start of the decade to a lucrative (for the time) seven-year, $26.5 million contract, placing him among the league’s highest-paid players despite coming off of the bench.
As such a bench player in 1989-90, Williams had his best season, putting up 16.8 points and 8.1 rebounds per game to go along with a steal and two blocks. He ranks 44th in NBA history with 1,456 career blocks, around 23 slots below Larry Nance but six slots up on Zydrunas “Big Z” Ilgauskas.
Cavs’ All-1990s Team: C – Brad Daugherty
The Cavaliers’ run as a strong playoff team from the 1980s and into the 1990s was built on the backs of three key stars. Mark Price, the smooth-shooting point guard. Larry Nance, the pogo-stick block artist. And finally Brad Daugherty, the dominant scorer inside.
The first overall pick in the 1986 NBA Draft, Daugherty immediately delivered for the Cavaliers. He averaged 15.7 points and 8.1 rebounds as a rookie and went up from there. Daugherty would play all eight seasons of his career with the Cavs, averaging 19 points, 9.5 rebounds, and 3.7 assists per game over that career.
Five of those eight seasons fall under our purview for the Al-Decade Team. That includes 311 games for Daugherty where he operated as the primary offensive option for the Cavs. His 19.9 points per game over that span lead all players, and his touch around the basket boosted him to a 59.8 percent true-shooting, also a decade-franchise-best. He also excelled in the postseason, where his 4.6 postseason win shares are easily the top mark.
Daugherty, much like Price, saw his career cut short due to injury. Debilitating back issues caused him to miss the 1994-95 season, and he ended up retiring after being unable to return to the court after that. He totaled five All-Star appearances (three in the 1990s), one All-NBA nod (difficult given the center talent in the league) and led the Cavs to 31 postseason games in the decade.
He was the best player on the Cavs during those years, the 1A to Mark Price’s 1B. Together they are joined by Larry Nance Sr. and Hot Rod Williams from the core of those iconic teams, and Terrell Brandon rounds out the group as the “next man up” from the mid-1990s. Shawn Kemp deserves a nod for his play to close the decade, and Chris Milly, Danny Ferry and Tyrone Hill were all in consideration.
Final Tally
G – Mark Price
G – Terrell Brandon
F – Larry Nance Sr.
F – Hot Rod Williams
C – Brad Daugherty