History

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LeBron James surpassed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar for NBA career scoring record on Tuesday night with 10.9 seconds left in the third quarter against the Oklahoma City Thunder.

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LeBron Passes Kareem to Become NBA's All-Time Scoring Leader

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The Cavaliers legend was honored at halftime as the Wild Thing officially announced his retirement, as he is surrounded by family, friends, and former teammates. 

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Anderson Varejo Honored at Halftime

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The 2019-20 NBA season marks the Cavaliers 50th season and fans can get ready to take a trip down memory lane as the team prepares for a celebration that will honor the past and look to the future of Cleveland Cavaliers basketball. The 50th Season Celebration will pay homage to the history and journey of the Cavaliers franchise over the past 50 seasons to 2019-20 when the team welcomes in a new decade for the next generation of Cavs fans.

To announce their golden celebration, the Cavaliers released a retrospective video and introduced a commemorative logo in tribute to the 50th season.

The circular logo highlights 50 seasons of Cavaliers basketball through a dominant 5-0 in a bold, gold fill. The numbers are outlined in the Cavaliers heritage colors of wine and gold, first introduced to the team in 1970 and later re-introduced to the team in 2010-11. Flanked to the left and right of the 50 are the inaugural and current seasons of 1970 and 2020. Centered at the heart of the logo is the Cavaliers partial logo with ‘CLEVELAND CAVALIERS’ positioned at top and bottom to reflect the current team brand. Encapsulating the logo is a black fill, representing the black jersey’s worn in the team’s historic run to the 2016 NBA Championship.

A condensed version of the logo will also exist throughout the season, highlighting the same storylines as the logo above. Both logos will be used throughout the year to commemorate 50 seasons of Cavaliers basketball, and will appear in areas such as the Cavaliers court, commemorative items, limited edition merchandise and throughout various 50th season activations.

The centerpiece of the season-long celebration will be theme nights dedicated to remembering five eras of Cavs history that began in 1970 when the team first joined the league as an NBA expansion team. Each theme night will feature unique content and activities, in-game moments with special reunions being planned, commemorative giveaways and more— all to give fans the opportunity to relive and experience the special moments in time that helped define the Wine &amp; Gold.

The Cavaliers also announced a very special charitable initiative for the 50th season celebration that reflects the franchise’s long-standing commitment to community support over five decades. Through the Cavaliers Community Foundation, a total of $250,000 will specifically be gifted to local non-profit and charitable organizations during the 2019-20 season. The donation will be distributed monthly (November-March) and is in addition to the organization’s normal annual giving and donation programs. More details on the 50th season program will be announced closer to the start of the season.

“We have great plans in place to celebrate the Cavaliers 50th season that we know our fans will enjoy. We will rewind highlights, commemorate moments and embrace the memories that are a part of Cleveland’s rich sports history and our fans own personal stories,” said Cavaliers Chief Marketing Officer Tracy Marek.

The Cavaliers will tipoff the team’s milestone season in the glow of the newly transformed Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse. With the completion of the two-year massive renovation project to modernize the 26-year-old venue into a vibrant showplace, Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse will lead the charge in technology, innovation and fan experience as the Cavs usher in a new era of sports and entertainment for Cleveland and the region.

More details about the 50th Season Celebration will be announced in the coming months. To stay on top of the latest Cavs news and updates fans can follow the team’s official Twitter feed and Instagram account at @cavs and on Facebook at facebook.com/cavs.

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Celebrating 50 Seasons of NBA Basketball

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Cavaliers Draft Lottery History

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Cavaliers Uniform History

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Any local hoops fan worth his salt realizes that labeling Cleveland’s 2010-11 squad the “new-look Cavaliers” is a vast understatement.

Many of the recognizable players, coaches and front office personnel from the franchise’s recent run of unprecedented success have taken their talents elsewhere. And in their place, a new cadre of Cavaliers will emerge – led into an up-tempo and uncertain future by Coach Byron Scott and the new Cavs brass.

But while Coach Scott patrols the sidelines at the height of sartorial splendor, his charges on the floor will be donning a fresh design and a new expression of the wine and gold.

Actually, calling the new threads and team colors a “new expression” isn’t entirely accurate. More precisely, it’s an “original expression” of the Cavaliers’ archetypal colors. The wine will be deeper and the gold, brighter – reflecting the Cavaliers’ traditional tincture from their first few seasons of existence.

Over the years, the club’s colors – “wine and gold” – have become almost analogous to the team’s actual name. The Cavaliers are the “Wine and Gold” in the same way that Ohio State is the “Scarlet and Grey,” the University of Michigan is the “Maize and Blue” or the Oakland Raiders are the “Silver and Black.”

“The response from our fans related to our classic uniforms and merchandise has been tremendous over the last several seasons, especially our original wine and gold color mix items,” said Tracy Marek, the Cavaliers senior vice president of marketing. “As a result, we’re very excited to bring the spirit of the original expression of wine and gold into our brand full-time for the future.”

Cleveland’s new old-school uniforms have a classic appeal – with “CAVALIERS” emblazoned in wine across the chest on the home whites; “CLEVELAND” in gold on the road wines. Instead of a thick piping along the outer-thigh of the shorts, there is a “C-sword” on both sides.

The tops are crew-neck, with alternate striping on the neck and arms of the jersey as well as the waistband and legs of the shorts.

But perhaps the most unique feature of the Cavs new finery is something fans will never see.

Along the back of the jersey’s inner-collar – facing the back of the player’s neck – lies the Cavaliers credo: “All for one. One for all.”

Cleveland’s new uniforms are as much a throwback to their original 1970 threads as they’ve had in four decades since. In between, the franchise has experimented with burnt orange, royal blue, bright orange, black, purple and pastel blue. And throughout the club’s history, there have been three notable uniform changes – not all good.

The first uniforms featured the feathered underscore of “Cavaliers” on both home and road jerseys. Those years also featured the birth of the Cavs iconic logo – a silhouetted figure of a jousting Cavalier, encircled by the words “Cleveland Cavaliers.” The symbol is every bit as recognizable as the infamous “Chief Wahoo” and, thankfully, has survived through four decades of change.

Cleveland’s second uniform style – made famous by the “Miracle of Richfield” team – featured gold home duds and “Marquette”-style horizontal white, wine and gold stacked piping along the sides. Those uniforms – and that era – were celebrated again by the 2004-05 team.

In 1981, as the final remnants of the Miracle squad faded into the sunset, the Mike Mitchell-era team went with a metallic gold with a pair of horizontal stripes with the word “Cleveland” written above it in block letters.

But in 1983 – with the purchase of the team by Gordon Gund and the organization on the verge of big changes – the Cavaliers made a radical departure from its original colors and identity. This came in the form of the burnt orange and royal blue uni’s with the word “CAVS” written across the chest. The “V” was designed like a hoop with a ball entering it, which also served as Cleveland’s new logo.

The Cavaliers retained the colors – and slight variations on the look – throughout their final, and highly successful, years at the Richfield Coliseum. The burnt orange as the primary road color was replaced by the royal blue road uniforms in 1987 and the “CAVS” logo was replaced with the block “Cleveland” before the 1989 season.

This attire will forever be linked to the Lenny Wilkens era of excellence that featured the likes of Mark Price, Brad Daugherty, Larry Nance and Hot Rod Williams.

When the Cavaliers began play at Gund Arena in the 1994-95 season, there was once again a sea change from the previous look.

From the wine and gold of the 70s to the burnt orange and royal blue of the 80s, the Cavaliers went with pastel blue and black. Home uniforms were white, road black, with a jagged blue splash across the torso and double-lined lettering that said “CAVS” at home and “Cleveland” on the road, both outlined in orange.

The Cavaliers (thankfully) modified this look in 1997, sticking with the color scheme, but losing the incongruous torso splash. Instead, the uniforms featured a more streamlined blue and orange piping along the right side of the shirts and shorts. The futuristic lined letters remained.

But in October of 2002, Gund decided to bring Cavaliers fans back to the future. The new colors were announced on October 9, 2003 – the “new expression of wine and gold” – a crimson-hued wine color and a metallic, almost copper, gold. Dark blue, the secondary color, was a tribute to the Cavalier teams of the 1990s.

Now, eight years later, the franchise returns to their original colors, and the Cavaliers continue to move forward. With an eye on the future and a nod to the past, the wine and gold rolls on.

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Cavaliers Uniform and Logo History

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