Twenty-five years ago, on June 17, 1986, the Cavs set the course for a decade of success by drafting Brad Daugherty, Ron Harper and Johnny Newman and trading for Mark Price. Not bad for a team without a general manager or coach. Now the Cavs have a chance to accelerate the rebuilding process again with two first round draft choices -- No. 1 and No. 4 -- in the NBA draft on June 23.
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Richard Drew l AP file photoA trade with Philadelphia gave the Cleveland Cavaliers the first pick of the NBA draft on June 17, 1986. Their choice: Brad Daugherty from North Carolina. As Daugherty began his eight years with Cleveland he took time for a photograph that day with Commissioner David Stern.CLEVELAND, Ohio — Brad Daugherty really can't believe it has been 25 years since the 1986 draft, when the Cavaliers made him the No. 1 pick overall.
Then again, he can't help but remember how much time has passed since that day.
"No," he said when asked whether he realized it was the 25th anniversary of that momentous occasion, "other than the fact that my back hurts and my knees hurt all the time.
"It's unbelievable."
On June 17, 1986, the Cavs set the course for a decade of success by drafting Daugherty and Ron Harper with the No. 1 and No. 8 picks in the first round, respectively, trading for Mark Price, and then adding Johnny Newman in the second round with the 29th overall pick.
Not bad for a team without a general manager or a coach.
"After the draft, I knew, based on everything I'd heard, that this would be one of the great drafts of all time," said Gordon Gund, who was the majority owner at the time. "To be able to fill practically your whole starting team was special. It was great for the city.
"It was a phenomenal turnaround. The only draft that was as exciting was when we got LeBron."
James, of course, is gone, seven years after the Cavs made him the No. 1 draft pick in 2003. But thanks to the luck of the draw in the lottery -- and owner Dan Gilbert's 14-year-old son Nick -- the Cavs again have a chance to accelerate the rebuilding process with two first-round draft choices -- No. 1 and No. 4 -- in the NBA draft on June 23.
In many ways, the Cavs of 2011 are in much better shape heading into the draft than the Cavs of 1986. This team has a general manager and coach -- Chris Grant and Byron Scott, respectively -- as well as veteran players such as Baron Davis, Antawn Jamison and Anderson Varejao. Jamison and Varejao will be returning from injuries that contributed to the team's 19-63 record.
The 1986 team was a conglomeration of aging veterans such as World B. Free, Lonnie Shelton and Eddie Johnson, underachievers in Keith Lee and Mel Turpin, and up-and-comers such as Phil Hubbard, John Bagley and Mark West. Together they'd finished 29-53 and neither General Manager Harry Weltman, nor coach George Karl, nor his interim successor, Gene Littles, were invited back.
Bias' overdose was a shock to Daugherty
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AP fileLen Bias on draft day in 1986. Two days later he was dead.Two days after the 1986 NBA draft, Brad Daugherty was sitting on a plane, heading to meet Len Bias in Boston, when he heard the news.
"The pilot came back to me and said, 'Hey, man. Congratulations on being the No. 1 pick,' " Daugherty recalled. "It's just terrible about what happened to your buddy Len Bias this morning. I was, like, 'What are you talking about?' He said, 'Len Bias is dead.' I said, 'Really?'
"I sat there for a second. I got off the plane and walked into the airport. I didn't have a cell phone at the time and so I picked up the pay phone and called coach [Dean] Smith. He told me to come back to campus. I went back to campus, went to the basketball office and heard that one of my friends had died of [a] drug overdose. I just couldn't quite put the pieces together because the kid didn't do drugs. It was weird. I just know 100 percent that was the first time he'd ever done that.
"We did some barnstorming our senior year, all the seniors in the ACC, and I remember he wouldn't even drink a beer. I just thought that was really amazing. Here we were, all college seniors, graduating and playing ball. We'd stop to have a couple beers and he didn't touch it. I just thought that was really amazing."
Daugherty had known Bias since high school. While Daugherty was at North Carolina and Bias was at Maryland, the two had some memorable battles, filled with trash talk between friends. After the Cavs had made Daugherty the No. 1 pick in the draft and the Celtics made Bias the No. 2 pick on June 17, 1986, the two were supposed to sign a joint contract with Reebok on June 19. At the time it was going to be one of the largest deals in sports, the first time the top two picks were going to sign a shoe deal together.
But on June 19, Bias died of a cardiac arrhythmia brought on by a cocaine overdose.
Daugherty was quiet for a moment, thinking about his friend.
"It was just one of those things, man," he said, softly. "He would have been a great pro. Tremendous athlete. Tremendous player. Sad day."
-- Mary Schmitt Boyer
Weltman had the difficult task of trying to rebuild the team in the wake of the chaotic three-year tenure of owner Ted Stepien. Things were so bad that when Gund bought the team in 1983, he did so only after arranging to buy four first-round draft choices -- one each year from 1983 to 1986 -- to help get the team back on its feet.
In a gamble that turned out to be a great move, Weltman had drafted John "Hot Rod" Williams out of Tulane in the second round in 1985. Williams had been accused of point shaving while in college, although he was later found not guilty. In the interim, he was unable to play in the NBA. But he already was on board when the Cavs went into the 1986 draft.
Wayne Embry was almost on board as the team's next general manager. He had agreed to terms with the Cavs, but he wasn't going to sign his contract until after he finished the 1986 draft for the Indiana Pacers, where he'd been working as a consultant.
The Pacers had the No. 4 pick in the draft, and all parties with the Pacers and the Cavs had agreed that there would be no conflict of interest for Embry. Naturally, things didn't work out quite that smoothly.
But things started out great as far as Embry was concerned when he received a call from the Cavs the night before the draft.
"Thanks to Dick Watson, our cap guru, we figured out that Philadelphia was going to have a very hard time signing the first pick overall," Gund recalled. "So I talked with [Philadelphia owner] Harold Katz about a trade. We negotiated for the first-round pick and were very fortunate to get the first pick the night before the draft. I made the decision, but Dick was the one who identified that they would need to do something."
Embry was totally in favor of sending Roy Hinson and other considerations to Philadelphia for the rights to draft Daugherty, who was considered soft by Katz and the Sixers.
"When I got the call the evening before as to whether that would be a move to make, I said, 'By all means,' " said Embry, now a consultant with the Toronto Raptors. "It was my opinion that the Cavs needed a center. I thought Brad Daugherty was a future star. He was the best center in the draft that year. That's why I insisted they make the trade.
Old teammates disagree on the choice at No. 1
Guard Ron Harper would like to see the Cavs draft Duke point guard Kyrie Irving with the No. 1 pick in the 2011 draft on June 23.
"I think they could use a point guard," Harper said. "Even though they've got Baron Davis and he's still got two or three more years, this will give them a chance to get someone to play behind him."
Center Brad Daugherty disagreed.
"In my opinion, he's a little guard and that's not what we need," said Daugherty, who may or may not be letting his University of North Carolina roots influence his thinking about the young prospect from the Tar Heels' arch-rival, Duke. "What Cleveland needs is an Antawn Jamison-type player who's 10 years younger. That's what you've got to have to be competitive.
"You get some little guard . . . unless he's Derrick Rose, he's 6-4 or 6-5 and can get in the lane . . . I'll take five of 'em. I don't think that's the kind of player he is. I don't think he's a good fit.
"I'd like to see Cleveland try to find a couple guys who are 6-8 who can defend and score or can develop into scorers. I think that's what will make them better. . . . I think Derrick Williams would be a heck of a good pick. I'd pick him."
-- Mary Schmitt Boyer
"I was told there was some resistance in the room. I do remember vividly saying, 'Please make that trade.' So the trade was made. Then there was some dispute in the room whether we should draft Brad Daugherty or Len Bias. I said, 'By all means, please draft Brad Daugherty.' So that's how that unfolded."
Gund admitted there was some interest in Bias, the former Maryland star. He said on a scale of one to 10, the interest was maybe three or four. But with Embry's endorsement, the Cavs decided they'd take Daugherty, the center from North Carolina.
Daugherty, in New York for the draft the next afternoon, got wind of the trade the night before and was not upset. His coach at North Carolina, Dean Smith, was not a big fan of Katz's, in part because Katz had Daugherty take part in a workout at his home in Philadelphia prior to the draft.
So when Daugherty got up the next morning to the news that he was going to Cleveland, he was thrilled.
"I was excited," recalled Daugherty, who works NASCAR broadcasts for ESPN. "I went down to the lobby and I was sitting there with Len Bias. I think we were staying at the Marriott in downtown New York. I remember sitting in the lobby. There was a round couch. We were sitting there laughing and he asked me, 'Man, what kind of car are you going to buy?' I'll never forget that. I said, 'Shoot. Len, I'm a country boy. I'll probably get a new pickup truck.' He started laughing. He said, 'Man, I'm going to buy myself the biggest Mercedes you've ever seen. That thing's going to be longer than a train.' We were laughing about that and kidding around.
"We went on to the draft and I remember David Stern coming out and saying, 'With the No. 1 pick, the Philadelphia 76ers have traded their pick to Cleveland and the No. 1 pick is Brad Daugherty.' So that was it.
"It was all kind of surreal. When you're that young, you don't put all the pieces together, the impact and all that that it's going to have on you and everyone around you. We were all just laughing, having the time of our lives, just laughing our butts off just because we were so happy. A lot of guys were emotional. That day changed their lives."
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PD fileRon Harper, above, believes he, Mark Price, and Brad Daugherty could have brought more than one title to Cleveland.Indeed. Within two days, Bias, the No. 2 pick in the draft by the Boston Celtics, would be dead of a cardiac arrhythmia brought on by a cocaine overdose. But on June 17, 1986, that was the farthest thing from Daugherty's mind. The only thing he was worried about was trying to find out as much as he could about his new home -- Cleveland.
"After I was drafted I started doing some research on Cleveland trying to figure out exactly where it was at and the demographics," he said. "When I looked at the basketball team, it wasn't pretty. I found out that I was going to be in for a lot of hard work trying to be part of something good there. I read all about the Ted Stepien era and how they struggled to win basketball games. I knew there was new ownership and a new attitude but it was a building process. But I was all for it. I was tickled to death. It didn't scare me or anything."
Not long after Daugherty's selection, the Cavs took Harper, the multi-talented star from Miami, with the eighth pick. He was overjoyed.
"It was good to be drafted to my home state," said Harper, who had passed on the chance to be in New York for the draft so he could be home with his family in Dayton. "My mom could come to the games. She was scared to get on an airplane."
He knew the Cavs weren't very good.
"Actually, I didn't feel that way," said Harper, now retired and raising his family in New Jersey. "They had two first-round draft picks that year so I knew they'd get better. Even though they didn't have a good team, they had a good draft. It was a good chance for me."
Not long after he was drafted that afternoon, Harper headed out to play basketball in a summer-league game that night.
"I remember I had a good game and then my coach said we were going to have a party at his house," he said. "I had a ball. I had a great game, I can tell you that. I felt totally relaxed."
Meanwhile, things got a little hairy for Embry. The Pacers had taken Chuck Person with the No. 4 pick in the first round, and Embry thought he had a chance to make a deal that would bring Georgia Tech point guard Mark Price to Indiana with the first pick in the second round that belonged to Dallas. What he didn't realize was that Gund was trying to make the same deal using information he'd obtained from Embry during the interviewing process when the Cavs had asked Embry his opinion of certain players. When Embry's deal with one Dallas executive was overridden by Gund's deal with another, the Pacers owners were not pleased.
"Herb Simon called me out of the room and let me have it pretty good," Embry recalled. "He was a bold man because I wasn't in the mood. I said, 'Herb, I apologize. I knew nothing about this one.' It happened. I couldn't do anything about it. It turned out great. Mark and I laugh about that now. I wouldn't say that was a low point, but it was a difficult situation I was in."
Like Harper, Price was watching the draft at home, in Oklahoma. After he wasn't taken in the first round, he got up to use the washroom and when he came back his family was yelling and screaming after Dallas made him the first pick in the second round. Dallas, of course, was the closest NBA team to Oklahoma, but it was only a few minutes before the trade to Cleveland was announced.
"I remember before the draft somebody asked me, 'Is there any place you don't want to go?' " recalled Price, who has been an assistant coach with several NBA teams, including Golden State last season. "I had said, 'No, I really don't care. But the only two places I'm not that interested in are New York and Cleveland.' I remember my agent calling me 30 minutes after I got drafted saying, 'Congratulations on getting drafted, but you just got traded to Cleveland.'
"Obviously, I'm from the middle of the country and I had played in the South in college so that was just what I was more familiar with at the time. Cleveland obviously was not a good team at that time, but as things started to unfold, I began to see it as a really good opportunity for me to get to play. I think that was really important for me at that time -- being a second-round pick. Had I been drafted late in the first round by a really good team I might not have had the opportunity to get out on the floor.
"There were a lot of skeptics doubting I would ever be able to play in the NBA at the time, so I was just thrilled at getting drafted. It was a dream come true. At that point, I didn't really care where it was. I was just looking forward to making the best of my opportunity."
Johnny Newman had a similar reaction while watching the draft from his home in Danville, Va. The Richmond star had some interaction with Cavs scouts before the draft, so he'd paid attention as Daugherty, Harper and Price joined Cleveland before him. He also knew Williams was ready to join the team.
"I was very excited that I got drafted," said Newman, now retired and living in Richmond. "Like most guys, I felt like I should have been drafted higher. For me coming in, I knew I could play as well as any of them. But I wondered, 'Where do I fit in here?' It was a challenge for me. But they treated me so well. It was an exciting time. I really appreciated Mr. Gordon Gund. He wanted the best for the team."
With the best overall draft night in the history of the team, the Cavs were ready to embark on their most successful run to that point in the franchise's history.
"It was significant," Embry said. "That set the stage for the team in the late 1980s and early 1990s. In our opinion, we thought we were the best one through 12 team in the league.
"We just couldn't overcome that one obstacle -- Michael Jordan."
To reach this Plain Dealer reporter: mschmitt@plaind.com, 216-999-4668
On Twitter: @pdcavsinsider
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