Since the Cleveland Cavaliers have been become the talk of not only our city but the entire NBA as they continue to thoroughly dominate teams night in and night out, we thought it might be fun to take a somewhat nostalgic look back at a not-so-good period of Cavaliers basketball, the Ted Stepien era of ownership.
His initial $2 million investment secured Stepien around 38% ownership that quickly became 82% managing control over the next several months.
The years 1980-83 were truly years that lifelong Cavalier fans and the NBA would like to forget, but Stepien’s mismanagement of the team from top to bottom has a lasting legacy to this very day. This era gave birth to the "Ted Stepien Rule," which limits teams when it comes to the trading of draft picks.
What Is the Ted Stepien Rule in the NBA?
After trading away the Cavaliers' own and acquired first-round draft picks for five consecutive years, the NBA instituted the rule that prevented a team from trading away its first-round pick in consecutive years. It should be noted that there are now loopholes allowing teams to get around the rule, but the fact that it had to be instituted in the first place because of Stepien’s undisciplined trade concepts is really the story.
In addition to this embarrassment, the team's generally poor play on the court, multiple head-scratching coaching hires, and subsequent firings added to the Cavaliers coming under the scrutiny of the league almost from day one.
Why day one you might ask? Well, Stepien had this idea related to the marketing of the NBA that was also a bit strange - to say the least.
Ted Stepien's Bizarre NBA Marketing Philosophy
You see, Stepien also had some interesting insights into the racial makeup of the NBA as it related to marketing, tickets sales, and fan appeal. He felt that teams needed to be racially balanced, to draw from a balanced fan base. There is more to this absurdity that you can more extensively look into, but I think you get the idea.
Suffice to say that his roster - as it stood in December of 1980 when he uttered these pearls of marketing wisdom - which included six white players and five black players, was a particular source of pride for him. We may never know for sure if his points held merit because the team’s remarkably poor team play also did not attract fans.
His first coach hired in 1980 was Bill Musselman, whose claim to fame was winning an NCAA national championship at Minnesota in 1972. His initial 25-26 record prompted Stepien’s first firing. It only got worse from there.
Don Delaney, who had taken over for Musselman with eleven games remaining in the 80-81 season, started the 81-82 season on the bench. His dismal start led to Bob Kloppenburg, assistant coach, taking over for one game. He turned things over to Chuck Daly, an up-and-coming assistant with Philadelphia who went a dismal 9-32, which led unbelievably to a return to the bench of, drum roll please, one Bill Musselman, who had been toiling away in the team’s front office.
We have saved probably the best - or worst, depending upon your point of view - for last. Stepien even managed to pick a fight with the team’s enormously popular radio broadcaster, Joe Tait. It is widely held that Tait was fired because of their disagreements, but it was Stepien’s dispute with radio partner WWWE that got control of the broadcasts back in Stepien’s control, leading to Joe Tait moving on to the New Jersey Nets for the 1981-82 season.
Fans organized a Joe Tait Appreciation Night for the last home game of the season that achieved the highest attendance of the season. To add insult to injury for Stepien, chants of “Let's go Joe, Ted must go” were heard not only all around the Richfield Coliseum, but on the airwaves clear as a bell.
During Stepien’s time as owner, attendance plummeted, the fight song became a polka, fans wore bags over the heads to games, and he even thought about renaming the team the Ohio Cavaliers with the thought of splitting home games with nearby cities without NBA teams, like Cincinnati, Toronto, and even the dreaded Pittsburgh to increase the team's fan base.
Thankfully, the insanity came to an end when Stepien sold his majority interest in the team to George and Gordon Gund. The league’s approval of the sale also allowed them to give the Gunds a cash option to buy a first-round pick for the remaining four years the team was without one because of Stepien’s trades.
So, the moral of the story is to enjoy every moment of the Cleveland Cavaliers of today, because we can guarantee you that any Cavaliers fan, such as myself, who was around for the early 80s nightmare is enjoying this run to its fullest. Many people today don't realize just how close we came to losing the team altogether a mere 10+years after it first took the court at the old Cleveland Arena in 1970.
(Photo source: Cleveland Public Library)