Kenny Atkinson isn’t pretending Mario Hezonja’s place in Cleveland is already carved out.
Three days before Hezonja is set to play his first NBA regular-season game since the 2019-20 season, the Cavaliers coach said Monday that the team is still figuring out exactly how the 31-year-old Croatian fits.
“I think it's still a work in progress, right?” Atkinson said.
“We are still working with [him] to define what that role is, right? And I'm still in an observation mode, 'cause I can watch [him at] Real Madrid, where he's the number one option, and then watching us.
So we've had those discussions.”
Atkinson made it clear he isn’t rushing to lock Hezonja into a narrow lane.
“But on the other side of that, I don't want to right off the bat put him in a box,” Atkinson continued. “I do not know his game well enough and how it fits the NBA.
Obviously getting a better idea, but that's going to be a little bit. It's going to take some time to really narrow that down: 'Hey, here's exactly what we need.'”
One area that could grow into a real part of the mix is the pick-and-roll. Atkinson has already seen flashes of it from Hezonja.
The Cavaliers brought Hezonja in late July on a one-year, $2.8 million deal after LeBron James picked the Philadelphia 76ers and after free agency had already sent Dean Wade to Philadelphia, Keon Ellis to Brooklyn, and Larry Nance Jr. to Indiana. Golden State also pursued him.
Real Madrid confirmed the split on July 31. Across four seasons there, the club said Hezonja won six titles, including two Spanish league championships and a Copa del Rey.
Last season, Spain’s Liga ACB named him MVP after he averaged 13.3 points, 4.0 rebounds, and 2.4 assists. In the EuroLeague, only one Real Madrid teammate scored more than his 13.2 points per game.
Hezonja’s final run with Real Madrid ended in the EuroLeague final in Athens on May 24, when the team fell to Olympiacos, 92-85. Hezonja scored 19 points on 7-of-14 shooting and added five assists and four rebounds.
Jarrett Allen said the adjustment is real, but he’s been encouraged by what he’s seen.
“I think he's doing excellent,” Allen said. “I think it is a big adjustment for somebody to come from a different style of basketball to the NBA basketball, especially.
But he has things he still needs to learn, but he has things that he excels at as well. When he drives to the basket, he's able to find the cutter.”
“I know during the game we had a play where he posted up and he found me on the roll for a floater,” Allen added. “So he's doing very well for somebody to come from your league.”
Hezonja’s NBA background is familiar enough, but it also feels far away now. Orlando took him fifth overall in 2015, and he spent three seasons there before a 2018-19 stop with the New York Knicks and then a final NBA season in Portland. In 2019-20, he averaged 4.8 points and 3.5 rebounds over 53 games.
When he left the league, his career numbers sat at 6.9 points, 3.1 rebounds and 1.3 assists per game. After that, he played EuroLeague basketball for Panathinaikos and UNICS Kazan before Real Madrid signed him.
Cleveland’s first training camp with Hezonja came in Spain. The team practiced at The Embassy in Fuengirola beginning Sept. 30, then wrapped things up with an Oct. 4 scrimmage at Martín Carpena Arena in Málaga.
Allen said the trip was busy enough that there wasn’t much time to roam, though he did get a taste of the area.
“I think Mario went home when he went back to Spain,” Allen explained. “But I got to explore a little bit, go to Old Town, go by the beach. It was a busy schedule, so I didn't do as much as I wanted to, but I still got the culture fix that I wanted.”
Cavaliers executive José Calderón, who played for Cleveland in 2017-18, helped design the facility with Berni Rodríguez, his former teammate on Spain’s national team. Atkinson also worked at a Basketball Without Borders Europe camp at the same site in 2024, when he was an assistant with the Golden State Warriors.
After returning to the United States, Cleveland went 1-2 in three preseason games.
The Cavaliers open Thursday in Philadelphia at 7 p.m. ET on ESPN.
In Other News...
Cavaliers Still Have A Rival Problem They Thought Was Behind Them
The Cavaliers have already had one reminder this season that old problems do not disappear just because the roster looks better. They took a step forward by beating the Detroit Pistons in the playoffs, only to lose the series anyway, a frustrating outcome that exposed how much more work still has to be done before Cleveland can call itself secure against the teams it expects to handle.
There was at least an encouraging response in the season opener, when the Cavs rallied past the Boston Celtics with a comeback win that hinted at real progress. Even so, the bigger picture remains complicated, with Cleveland still sorting through who it can trust and how much growth is left in the current core before the team can feel comfortable that those familiar threats are truly behind it. [Read more 🡒]
Cavaliers Opener Could Hinge On One Newcomer Against Philadelphia
As the Cavaliers get ready to open the 2026-27 season against Philadelphia, much of the attention naturally falls on how Cleveland will handle a matchup that can stretch a defense from edge to edge. Peyton Watson is one of the new pieces in that conversation, and his appeal is obvious enough: he can guard multiple spots, bring length to the perimeter and give Cleveland another option when the game starts getting uncomfortable on the wing.
The real question is whether Watson can do more than just absorb tough defensive assignments in a season opener that already looks like a serious early test. Cleveland will need him to chip in offensively alongside Donovan Mitchell and James Harden, because the Cavaliers may not get much margin for error against a Philadelphia group that can punish mistakes on both ends. How quickly Watson fits into that balance could tell a lot about how far Cleveland can go from the start. [Read more 🡒]
Cavaliers Already Have A Playoff Problem Brewing In The East
The opening nights of the NBA season already offered a reminder that the East may be even more unforgiving this time around. Philadelphia opened with a win over New York after reshaping its roster around LeBron James, Toronto handled Chicago with a new-look group that includes Kawhi Leonard again, and Detroits comeback against Boston added another early wrinkle to a conference that feels loaded from top to bottom.
For Cleveland, the bigger concern is how quickly those shifts could affect its own path through the bracket. The Cavaliers have already been pointed toward a tougher road against the teams around them, and the early returns only sharpen that sense of urgency, especially with familiar East rivals making significant offseason moves and beginning to look like the kinds of clubs that can alter the playoff picture before the calendar has even settled in. [Read more 🡒]