{"id":801362,"date":"2026-08-01T18:48:46","date_gmt":"2026-08-01T18:48:46","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/801362\/"},"modified":"2026-08-01T18:48:46","modified_gmt":"2026-08-01T18:48:46","slug":"spanish-league-mvp-mario-hezonja-returns-to-nba-on-1-year-contract-with-cleveland-cavaliers-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/801362\/","title":{"rendered":"Spanish League MVP Mario Hezonja returns to NBA on 1-year contract with Cleveland Cavaliers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"true\" data-v-273d04fe=\"\">CLEVELAND (AP) \u2014 Forward <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com\/nba\/mario-hezonja-player\" class=\"entity\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Mario Hezonja<\/a> will return to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com\/nba\" class=\"entity\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">NBA<\/a> for the first time in six years after signing a one-year contract with the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com\/nba\/cleveland-cavaliers-team\" class=\"entity\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Cleveland Cavaliers<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"true\" data-v-273d04fe=\"\">Hezonja has played the last four years for Real Madrid and was the Spanish League MVP after averaging 13.3 points, 4.0 rebounds and 2.4 assists this past season.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"true\" data-v-273d04fe=\"\">The 31-year-old from <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com\/soccer\/croatia-men-team\" class=\"entity\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Croatia<\/a> was the fifth overall pick by Orlando in the 2015 NBA draft and played five seasons for the Magic, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com\/nba\/new-york-knicks-team\" class=\"entity\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">New York Knicks<\/a> and Portland Trail Blazers. He averaged 6.9 points, 3.1 rebounds and 1.3 assists. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"true\" data-v-273d04fe=\"\">Hezonja also played in the EuroLeague for Panathinaikos in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com\/soccer\/greece-men-team\" class=\"entity\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Greece<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com\/soccer\/russia-men-team\" class=\"entity\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Russia&#8217;s<\/a> UNICS Kazan.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"true\" data-v-273d04fe=\"\">Cleveland \u2014 which advanced to the Eastern Conference finals last season for the first time in 2018 \u2014 had a need for depth in the front court after the departures of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com\/nba\/dean-wade-player\" class=\"entity\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Dean Wade<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.foxsports.com\/nba\/keon-ellis-player\" class=\"entity\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Keon Ellis<\/a> during free agency.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"true\" data-v-273d04fe=\"\">___<\/p>\n<p class=\"ff-h fs-16 lh-1pt6 mg-b-15 article-content\" use-external-image=\"true\" data-v-273d04fe=\"\">AP NBA: https:\/\/apnews.com\/hub\/nba<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"CLEVELAND (AP) \u2014 Forward Mario Hezonja will return to the NBA for the first time in six years&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":675485,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[7,193,24059,3007,80802,14356,1407,6,12,191,27585],"class_list":["post-801362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nba-draft","tag-basketball","tag-cleveland-cavaliers","tag-croatia","tag-greece","tag-international-friendlies","tag-mario-hezonja","tag-national-basketball-association","tag-nba","tag-nba-draft","tag-new-york-knicks","tag-russia"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/117021754208318563","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801362","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=801362"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801362\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/675485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=801362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=801362"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=801362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}