{"id":566218,"date":"2026-01-28T12:32:22","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T12:32:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/566218\/"},"modified":"2026-01-28T12:32:22","modified_gmt":"2026-01-28T12:32:22","slug":"current-cavs-recall-where-they-were-for-2016-nba-finals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/566218\/","title":{"rendered":"Current Cavs recall where they were for 2016 NBA Finals"},"content":{"rendered":"

Every longtime Cleveland Cavaliers<\/a> fan remembers exactly where they were on June 19, 2016. It\u2019s impossible to forget the anxiety that turned into euphoria when the final buzzer sounded, LeBron James fell to the floor, and a professional sports team in Cleveland was crowned champion for the first time in 52 years.<\/p>\n

Members of the current Cavaliers had a different perspective on that Finals.<\/p>\n

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Larry Nance Jr. is the only one from the current group who grew up in the area and was in the league a decade ago. The rest were just college, high school, or even middle school-aged kids watching one of the best Finals of their lifetime.<\/p>\n

Jaylon Tyson was 13-years old at the time, but he remembers that Finals vividly.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was 1,000% locked in,\u201d Tyson told Fear the Sword. \u201cWe were seeing it at my dad\u2019s house. Me, him, and my little brother were sitting there watching it. And all I remember is the block. I got up. That was the craziest thing I\u2019ve ever seen.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tyson grew up a fan of LeBron, so he was thrilled with the result.<\/p>\n

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\u201cI was happy for LeBron, happy for Cleveland, obviously, and then I got drafted here,\u201d Tyson said. \u201cIt was a full-circle moment.\u201d<\/p>\n

Support us and Let \u2018Em Know with Homage!<\/a>\"\"<\/p>\n

Anything bought from the links helps support Fear the Sword. You can also shop all of Homage\u2019s Cavs gear HERE<\/a>. The link to the 2016 championship shirt HERE<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Lonzo Ball was a little older. He was preparing for his freshman year of college at the time.<\/p>\n

\u201cI did like the Cavs at that time,\u201d Ball told Fear the Sword. \u201cLeBron was my favorite player, so I actually watched Game 7 in my homie\u2019s dorm room in UCLA on a little, tiny ass 30-inch screen.<\/p>\n

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\u201cCollege life was definitely exciting. I was on the basketball team, so obviously, we loved the game. So, can\u2019t really ask for anything better than that Game 7 and for it to end the way it did.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dean Wade had a similar story. He watched the game with his college teammates at the Kansas State practice facility.<\/p>\n

\u201cHalf my team was split, like 50\/50,\u201d Wade said to Fear the Sword. \u201cWe were all cheering for a different team. It was the loudest the locker room had ever gotten.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wade was also rooting for the Cavs, but more so out of a disdain for the Warriors.<\/p>\n

Not everyone was as locked in. Both De\u2019Andre Hunter and Nae\u2019Qwan Tomlin followed the series as high schoolers, but they weren\u2019t living and dying with every possession.<\/p>\n

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Jarrett Allen didn\u2019t watch that Finals at all, admitting that he didn\u2019t pay attention to the NBA when he was in high school.<\/p>\n

Then, there\u2019s Craig Porter Jr., who was 16 at the time, remembers the actually important stuff.<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember J.R. Smith,\u201d Porter told Fear the Sword. \u201cI remember some shit like he ain\u2019t put a shirt on for a week or something like that. I remember that it was one of the biggest parades. [Matthew] Dellavedova almost died guarding Curry.\u201d<\/p>\n

Delly was hospitalized during the 2015 series<\/a>, but that\u2019s important lore in the Cavs and Warriors rivalry.<\/p>\n

\u201cI wasn\u2019t a fan of either team,\u201d Porter said. \u201cBut you gotta watch that. It\u2019s the best brand of basketball.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Wednesday\u2019s game against the Los Angeles Lakers<\/a> will be as close to a 10-year celebration of that Finals as the Cavs will get. It\u2019s the one time LeBron will be back in Cleveland this season<\/a>. They\u2019ll undoubtedly show highlights from that series, and the crowd will give him a standing ovation.<\/p>\n

Even though 10 years have passed, we still haven\u2019t seen a Finals come close to recreating the cultural and local impact that one did. And it will likely be several more decades until we see one that rivals it.<\/p>\n

That 2016 Cavaliers team and championship are one of one.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn my opinion, it was the finest Finals victory there ever was,\u201d Ball said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Every longtime Cleveland Cavaliers fan remembers exactly where they were on June 19, 2016. It\u2019s impossible to forget…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":566219,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[7,193,14901,5759,76999,76998,1501,17575,1178,2286,2988,185,4442,150,30021,6,255],"class_list":{"0":"post-566218","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nba","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-cleveland-cavaliers","10":"tag-craig-porter-jr","11":"tag-dean-wade","12":"tag-dellavedova","13":"tag-fear-the-sword","14":"tag-finals","15":"tag-j-r-smith","16":"tag-jarrett-allen","17":"tag-jaylon-tyson","18":"tag-larry-nance-jr","19":"tag-lebron-james","20":"tag-lonzo-ball","21":"tag-los-angeles-lakers","22":"tag-naeqwan-tomlin","23":"tag-nba","24":"tag-warriors"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115972745744389514","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=566218"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/566218\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/566219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=566218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=566218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=566218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}