Cleveland Cavaliers Trivia
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50 free Cleveland Cavaliers trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
This Cleveland Cavaliers trivia quiz covers a franchise named by a newspaper contest that lost its first 15 games, staged the Miracle of Richfield in 1976, gave the NBA the Stepien Rule, built the Price–Daugherty–Nance teams that ran into Michael Jordan and The Shot, and then won the 2003 lottery and a hometown superstar. It covers LeBron James twice over — the first Finals in 2007, The Decision and Dan Gilbert's Comic Sans letter, the 26-game losing streak, the return in 2014, four straight Finals against Golden State and the 3–1 comeback sealed by The Block and Kyrie's three — and the years since: Donovan Mitchell's 71-point night, Evan Mobley's Defensive Player of the Year, the 15–0 start, plus Moondog, Sir C.C. and Rocket Arena. Questions run from easy to hard with the difficulty shown on each one. Every answer has been checked against a primary reference and each question carries its citation.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01The Cavaliers entered the NBA in 1970 alongside which two other expansion teams?
Portland Trail Blazers and Buffalo Braves
Portland Trail Blazers and Buffalo Braves joined the league with Cleveland, which lost its first 15 games before finally winning at fellow newcomer Portland.
Q 02How was the 'Cavaliers' name chosen in 1970?
A newspaper contest won by a fan
A newspaper contest won by a fan: Jerry Tomko's winning entry in The Plain Dealer said Cavaliers were daring, fearless men who never surrender, whatever the odds.
Q 03In the 1976 'Miracle of Richfield', the Cavaliers beat which team in a seven-game series?
Washington Bullets
Washington Bullets lost Game 7 87–85 on a shot with four seconds left. Cleveland then lost injured centre Jim Chones before the conference finals and fell to Boston in six games.
Q 04Which owner (1980–83) made six coaching changes and prompted an NBA rule against trading successive first-round picks?
Ted Stepien
Ted Stepien dealt away so many first-round picks that the NBA wrote the 'Stepien Rule'. In 1983 he threatened to move the team to Toronto, then sold it instead.
Q 05What 1980 stunt did the Cavs' owner stage at Cleveland's Terminal Tower?
Dropping softballs for players to catch
Dropping softballs for players to catch was meant to promote his pro softball league, but the balls fell so fast that they damaged a car and injured onlookers.
Q 06Which coach, fired by the Cavaliers in 1981–82, later won back-to-back titles with Detroit?
Chuck Daly
Chuck Daly went 9–32 as one of four Cleveland coaches that season, then built the Pistons' 'Bad Boys' champions of 1989 and 1990 and coached the 1992 Dream Team.
Q 07Michael Jordan's series-winning 'The Shot' in the 1989 playoffs went in over which Cavaliers defender?
Craig Ehlo
Craig Ehlo leaped to block the jumper, but Jordan seemed to hang in the air until he had gone past, and the buzzer-beater ended Cleveland's 57-win season in a deciding Game 5.
Q 08Which Hall of Fame coach led the 57-win 1988–89 Cavaliers, the franchise's best team to that point?
Lenny Wilkens
Lenny Wilkens took over a 29-win team in 1986 and had it winning 57 games by his third season, a jump of 15 wins on the year before.
Q 09Which Georgia Tech point guard was the sharpshooting star of the late-1980s and early-1990s Cavaliers?
Mark Price
Mark Price was a second-round pick whom Cleveland prised from Dallas on draft day for a future second-rounder. He made 90.4% of his career free throws.
Q 10Which Notre Dame guard, the first overall pick in 1971, is known to Cleveland fans as 'Mr. Cavalier'?
Austin Carr
Austin Carr broke his foot before his rookie season and missed its first month, yet recovered to become an All-Star in 1974, and the Cavaliers later retired his number 34.
Q 11Which North Carolina centre did the Cavaliers draft first overall in 1986 with a pick acquired from Philadelphia?
Brad Daugherty
Brad Daugherty cost Cleveland only Roy Hinson and cash in a trade made the day before the draft. He made five All-Star teams before back trouble ended his career at 28.
Q 12Which mortgage lender, founded by owner Dan Gilbert, gave its name to the Cavaliers' arena from 2005 to 2019?
Quicken Loans
Quicken Loans got its name after the software firm Intuit bought Gilbert's lender, Rock Financial. He led a buyback in 2002 and put the name on the arena three years later.
Q 13Which team swept the Cavaliers in the franchise's first NBA Finals in 2007?
San Antonio Spurs
Q 21Which UNLV forward was the Cavaliers' surprise first overall pick in 2013?
Anthony Bennett
Anthony Bennett became the first Canadian taken first overall when most forecasts had Cleveland choosing a big man. He was traded after one season and out of the NBA within four.
Q 22Which power forward did the Cavaliers get from Minnesota in 2014 to join James and Irving?
Kevin Love
Kevin Love cost Cleveland the first overall picks of the previous two drafts in a three-team trade. He stayed nine seasons, until a contract buyout in 2023.
Q 23The 2016 title was Cleveland's first major sports championship since which team's 1964 triumph?
The Browns
San Antonio Spurs won all four games. LeBron James had carried Cleveland there, scoring 48 points in a double-overtime Game 5 win at Detroit.
Q 14Which team upset the 66-win Cavaliers in the 2009 Eastern Conference Finals?
Orlando Magic
Orlando Magic won in six games, with Dwight Howard scoring 40 points in the clincher, so the best regular season in Cavaliers history ended a round short of the Finals.
Q 15Which four-time champion centre joined the Cavaliers for the 2009–10 season?
Shaquille O'Neal
Shaquille O'Neal arrived from Phoenix with the motto 'Win a ring for the King', but Boston knocked Cleveland out in the second round and LeBron James left that summer.
Q 16What was the title of the July 2010 TV special in which LeBron James announced he was leaving for Miami?
The Decision
The Decision went out live from a Boys and Girls Club in Greenwich, Connecticut. Its advertising raised about $6 million for charity, some $2.5 million of it for the clubs.
Q 17Dan Gilbert's furious open letter on LeBron's departure was published in which typeface?
Comic Sans
Comic Sans got the letter mocked online. In it he called the move a 'cowardly betrayal' and guaranteed Cleveland a title before James won one, and the NBA fined him $100,000.
Q 18LeBron James, the Cavaliers' first overall pick in 2003, was born and raised in which Ohio city?
Akron
Akron is also the birthplace of Stephen Curry, his opponent in four straight NBA Finals. The two were born in the same hospital, a little over three years apart.
Q 19Which 2014 first overall pick did the Cavaliers trade before he had played an NBA game?
Andrew Wiggins
Andrew Wiggins was Cleveland's third first overall pick in four years, but was traded two months later for an established All-Star. He became Rookie of the Year in Minnesota instead.
Q 20The Cavs' 2011 first overall pick was born in which country?
Australia
Australia was home because his father Drederick, an American, had taken an offer to play basketball in Melbourne, where Kyrie was born in 1992.
The Browns were underdogs when they shut out the Baltimore Colts 27–0 for the 1964 NFL title. The 52-year wait that followed became known as the Cleveland sports curse.
Q 24The Cavaliers' 2016 title gave the NBA Finals its first example of what?
A comeback from 3–1 down
A comeback from 3–1 down had never happened in a Finals. Cleveland won three straight, two of them in Oakland, against a Warriors team that had just won a record 73 games.
Q 25'The Block' in Game 7 of the 2016 Finals saw LeBron James chase down and reject a layup by whom?
Andre Iguodala
Andre Iguodala was finishing a fast break with the score 89–89 and 1:50 left when James, chasing from behind, blocked the layup and kept the game tied.
Q 26Who hit the go-ahead three-pointer over Stephen Curry with 53 seconds left in Game 7 of the 2016 Finals?
Kyrie Irving
Kyrie Irving's shot broke an 89–89 tie that had stood for nearly four minutes. Golden State did not score in the last 4:39, and Cleveland won 93–89.
Q 27Who replaced the fired David Blatt in January 2016 and coached the Cavaliers to the title?
Tyronn Lue
Tyronn Lue was promoted from assistant although the team was 30–11 and top of the East. By June he was a rookie head coach with a championship.
Q 28Which All-Star guard came to Cleveland from Boston in the 2017 trade for the Cavaliers' own star point guard?
Isaiah Thomas
Isaiah Thomas arrived with a hip injury after a season among the league's top scorers. He played only 15 games for Cleveland and was traded again within six months.
Q 29Which team did LeBron James join when he left Cleveland for the second time in 2018?
Los Angeles Lakers
Los Angeles Lakers signed him as a free agent that July. Cleveland, a Finals team in each of his last four seasons there, won just 19 games the next year.
Q 30Which guard, nicknamed 'Spida', set a Cavaliers single-game record with 71 points in January 2023?
Donovan Mitchell
Donovan Mitchell scored 71 in an overtime win over Chicago, four months after Cleveland gave Utah three players and three first-round picks to get him.