For the Cleveland Cavaliers, the final day of the 2022-23 NBA season was a dispiriting loss to the New York Knicks in Game 5 of their first-round series. While the league year technically stretched to June 30, for the Cavs it all fell apart in late April.
That kicked off five months of stewing on the loss, striving to improve and preparing for another run. The front office has been busy adding players and reconfiguring the bench, but for the players, it has mostly been working offscreen, work that won’t be realized until NBA Training Camp begins, preseason kicks off and, ultimately, the regular season begins.
The very first day of the 2023-24 season for Cavaliers players will be Media Day, an annual event where players, coaches, executives and media interact and build excitement for the coming season. How did players spend the offseason? How will the coaches work out that thorny lineup decision? Why did the general manager trade that one player? These questions and more will fly around 30 media days.
The Cleveland Cavaliers will kick off Training Camp on October 3rd, a few days before their preseason slate will begin. As usual, Media Day will take place a day before, which means that the Cleveland Cavaliers’ Media Day is October 2nd, 2023.
In fact, that’s the same date as 28 other teams. The Dallas Mavericks and Minnesota Timberwolves are the exception, as they will be playing preseason games in Abu Dhabi before the rest of the league kicks off. While the Cavs are teaching Max Strus and Ty Jerome how to integrate into their system, the Mavs and Wolves will play the first basketball of the new year.
Training Camp isn’t an overly long period, either, as preseason games start quickly even for the Cavaliers. They will open up the preseason in Atlanta on October 10th, giving them about a week to get to work before testing things out on the court with another team.
All of that will be kicked off with Media Day. Traditionally the team website will stream the various press conferences, so keep your eyes out for that announcement soon. We’ll cover all of the major news and antics from Media Day here on the website as well.
From there, the new year of basketball truly begins.