The number 19 has a small list in Cleveland, but the jersey carries a lot more history than the player count suggests.
Only three Cavaliers have worn it, and the number hasn’t been used since 2023. Its first appearance in Cleveland came back in 1973, with the most notable name attached to it being Lenny Wilkens.
Wilkens came to the Cavaliers for a brief finish to his playing career. The 6’1 guard was 35 years old and in his 13th NBA season when he averaged 20 points and 8 assists in Cleveland, and he was an All-Star during that stretch.
His real imprint on the franchise, though, came after his playing days were over. Wilkens coached the Cavaliers from 1986 to 1993 and helped shape that young group of Price and Daugherty.
He was described as bringing a kind of class to the team, and his run included three separate 50-win seasons. The playoff pain came against the Chicago Bulls.
By the end of his time in Cleveland, Wilkens had become the winningest coach in Cavaliers history with 316 victories, a mark that still stands. He is also a three-time Naismith Hall of Famer as a player, coach, and a member of the 1992 Dream Team. In 2022, he was added to the Cavaliers Wall of Honor.
It took 30 years for No. 19 to show up again, this time on Damon Jones. He wore it for three seasons with the Cavs, played 209 games, and averaged 6.6 points per game. Jones was known as a big personality around the team, and he once called himself the “greatest shooter in the world”.
One of his best-remembered Cleveland moments came in the 2006 playoffs, when he hit a game winner against the Wizards after LeBron James got him the ball following some trash talk to Gilbert Arenas.
Jones later became an assistant coach on the 2016 NBA Championship Cavaliers. More recently, he has been tied to moments he probably would rather forget, including the 2018 soup incident, when JR Smith threw a bowl of soup at him and Smith received a one-game suspension. Last year, Jones was also involved in a major gambling scandal in the NBA involving leaking insider information to sports bettors and taking part in a mafia-tied poker ring.
The final player to wear No. 19 in Cleveland was Neto. He appeared in 48 games for the Cavs late in his career and averaged 3.3 points. Across his eight-year NBA run, Neto was a steady role player for several teams.
So while only three players have worn 19 for Cleveland, the number has a surprisingly deep backstory, especially when you include everything that happened away from the floor.
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Kenny Atkinson Just Put Clevelands Expectations Under A Brighter Spotlight
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Atkinsons spot on that list reflects the larger challenge in front of him: guiding a team with real ambitions while balancing star power, inevitable roster turnover, and the constant demand to keep the season pointed toward the playoffs. For Cleveland, the attention is another sign that the conversation has moved beyond progress and into results, where the pressure only grows once the chase shifts from improvement to expectation. [Read more 🡒]