CACrown ArchivesThe cinema collection
EN/FR
Search
Menu
Research dossier · General Reference

1989–90 Cleveland Cavaliers season

NBA professional basketball team season

Cross-disciplinary reference desk with index cards, atlas, dictionary and catalogue
General referenceInterpretive dossier study · Crown Archives visual atlas
Record originEnglish Wikipedia
Text licenseCC BY-SA 4.0
Source revisionSep 24, 2026
Entity authorityQ3680606 ↗
Source-derived summary

The 1989–90 Cleveland Cavaliers season was the 20th season for the Cleveland Cavaliers in the National Basketball Association.

Season summary

Off-season

During the off-season, the Cavaliers acquired second-year guard Steve Kerr from the Phoenix Suns. All-Star center Brad Daugherty was out for the first half of the regular season due to foot surgery, and only appeared in just 41 games.

For the season, the team slightly updated their road uniforms, replacing the team nickname "Cavs" with the city name "Cleveland" on the front of their jerseys; these uniforms would remain in use until 1994.

Regular season

Without Daugherty, the Cavaliers got off to a slow start losing their first four games, on their way to a mediocre 10–16 start to the regular season. Early into the season, the team traded Ron Harper to the Los Angeles Clippers in exchange for rookie power forward, and first-round draft pick Danny Ferry and Reggie Williams; Ferry was selected by the Clippers out of Duke University as the second overall pick in the 1989 NBA draft, but refused to play for them as he went to play overseas in Italy. At mid-season, the team traded Chris Dudley to the New Jersey Nets, and released Williams to free agency; Williams later on signed with the San Antonio Spurs. The Cavaliers struggled playing below .500 in winning percentage for the first half of the season, holding a 21–25 record at the All-Star break, but played above .500 for the remainder of the season, winning 10 of their final 13 games, included a six-game winning streak to close the season. The Cavaliers finished in fourth place in the Central Division with a mediocre 42–40 record, and earned the seventh seed in the Eastern Conference.

Mark Price averaged 19.6 points, 9.1 assists and 1.6 steals per game, and led the Cavaliers with 152 three-point field goals, while Daugherty averaged 16.8 points and 9.1 rebounds per game, and Larry Nance provided the team with 16.3 points, 8.3 rebounds and 2.0 blocks per game.

Editorial summary

This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “1989–90 Cleveland Cavaliers season” as nBA professional basketball team season. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.

Editorial reviewA practical starting point whose main value is the path it opens into stronger specialist and primary sources. The current lead gives the account dated anchors—1989, 1994—that can be checked directly. The selected authority fields contribute no independent date. The account is most persuasive where Cleveland, Cavaliers and season can be independently traced.
Editorial analysis

Why this record matters

The subject matters to the general reference register because the source frames it as nBA professional basketball team season. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.

Evidence profile

The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 24, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q3680606. None of the 0 selected statements returned an explicit reference. The first chronological checks are 1989 and 1994.

Critical limits

A concise general-reference account can conceal disagreements about scope, terminology or the weight assigned to individual sources. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.

How to read it

Use the entry as an orientation point, then follow its citations and revision history. Names, dates and institutional relationships should be checked against the original record.

Best used for
  • Subject orientation
  • Search vocabulary
  • Locating named sources
Verify next

The closest primary source, responsible institution and strongest cited specialist reference.

Three-step research path

  1. Establish the record: confirm the title “1989–90 Cleveland Cavaliers season”, its source revision and the description used here.
  2. Expand the search: follow 1989–90 Cleveland Cavaliers season primary sources, 1989–90 Cleveland Cavaliers season archive and Cleveland research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
  3. Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.

Questions for further research

  1. Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “1989–90 Cleveland Cavaliers season”?
  2. Which cited source is closest to the event, object or claim?
  3. What terminology or title could unlock a more precise catalogue search?
Subject index

Search terms from this dossier

Source & attribution

This entry incorporates text from “1989–90 Cleveland Cavaliers season” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.