by Ehlo was drafted by the Houston Rockets in the 1983 draft where he played for three years in a limited playing role. Ehlo explains that the draft back then was much different than the draft today, “The draft was not celebrated and exposed as it is today with ESPN covering the whole thing. I was at Washington State working at our summer camps when the draft was happening. I was on an outdoor court helping out with some young children, chasing them around when the camp director came and told me I was drafted by Houston in the third round. I didn’t do much celebrating, instead just went back to work at the camp. That was when they had rookie camps in the middle of the summer and then we would get invited to the veterans’ camp after that. I made that team for the first three years under one year contracts each time. It was like $40,000 coming out of a college and I thought I was a very rich man.”
After his third season, Ehlo was able to move into free agency allowing Embry to sign him. The Rockets reached the NBA finals in 1986 before losing to perennial powerhouse, the Boston Celtics. Ehlo’s championship round experience made him even more inviting to the Cleveland Cavs’ organization.
Ehlo shares how it felt to play for the Rockets and later in that championship series against the Celtics, “In the next year’s draft, we selected Hakeem Olajuwon and he completed the twin towers that the team had, so I didn’t play a lot. I only got into a handful of games, but I can say I was part of the 12 man roster that beat the Lakers in five games in the conference finals before losing to the Larry Bird, Kevin McHale and those guys in the finals. That was the Celtics year as they went 40-1 at home and they couldn’t be beat; we hung in there but lost in six games. The last game was a blowout and I got to play the last few minutes and be out there to score the last basketball before the fans rushed the court. That was my one brief moment in the NBA finals.” Elho explains his decision to sign with Cleveland for the 1986 to 1987 season, “My coach in Houston was Bill Fitch, who was one of the first Cleveland coaches. Cleveland did not have a good team at that point, so coach Fitch would always tease us and say “I’m going to send you to Cleveland” when we weren’t playing well.
I was in the Western Conference and only had to go to Cleveland once, and that was when the Coliseum was out there so I wasn’t familiar with Cleveland at all. I grew up a Dallas Cowboys fan so I was somewhat familiar with the Browns. I knew that Cleveland fans were a very sports minded group of people.
I got signed to a ten day contract with the Cavs when Mark Price came down with tendonitis. Coach Wilkens was familiar with me from coaching in Seattle when I was at Washington State. I had talked with him several times when I was doing the rookie camps. When Bagley went down with a sprained ankle, it left me with a few others to play as the guards. It was a baptism by fire. We played 5 games in the 10 days I was there, which gave me a chance to perform for them. I was able to sign with them for the rest of the year after that stint.
It was a weird way of getting to Cleveland but I’m very glad that I did. I was brought up loyal to keep your word and when Houston had called me asking me to come back and I knew that even though it would have been easy to go back to Houston, I had given my word to Cleveland and owed it to them to stay there and start fresh.”
The 1986 -1987 season was a learning and growing experience for the Cavs that upper management had expected. The team finished with only 31 wins, but showed growth in many ways. John Williams, Brad Daugherty, and Ron Harper all made the NBA all rookie team. Despite the sixth place finish, the rookies’ playing skills gave Cleveland fans hope.
The 1987 – 1988 season brought low expectations from many outside of the Cavs organization. The team had gotten off to a mediocre start before Embry pulled the trigger on a blockbuster deal that brought seasoned veteran, Larry Nance, to town. On February 25, 1988, the Cavs traded away Tyrone Korbin, Kevin Johnson, Mark West and two future draft picks to the Phoenix Suns. In exchange, Phoenix sent Larry Nance, Mike Sanders and a future first-round pick to Cleveland.
Nance’s acquisition was seen by many in the media as placing the final piece in the Cavs rebuilding puzzles. Larry Nance grew up in Anderson, South Carolina the youngest in a large family of great athletes. He learned the game of basketball from his brothers, cousins and uncles. At first his older relatives would not allow him to play with them because he was too small, but then as he grew older, and taller he became very talented and the family allowed him to play all the time. He spent most of his childhood on the court with his family learning to play and perfecting his skills.
Larry Nance grew up idolizing the great Julius Erving. He was glued to his television every time he the chance to watch him play. He spent every Sunday afternoon in his own backyard, which he named The Spectrum, pretending to be Dr.J. Nance would later say that Dr. J was his favorite player until he reached the NBA and played against his idol.
Nance went to a trade school in McDuffie, South Carolina following in the footsteps of his father, who was a truck driver. While studying basic academics at the school, he also played basketball. Anderson Junior College recruited him to play for a year, but then Nance was recruited by Clemson. Clemson head coach, Bill Foster, had already seen Nance play and offered Larry the last “available” scholarship.
His faith in Nance was strong and he knew that he would be more than worth taking the chance on. It was loss for Anderson Junior College as they lost a top recruit, but choosing Clemson over Anderson was a no-brainer for Nance. It is not often that a major ACC college would happen to have an extra scholarship, call it fate, or whatever, but for Nance and Clemson it was the start of a beautiful partnership.
Nance was picked by the Phoenix Suns in the first round of the 1981 NBA draft following a good career at Clemson. Nance reflects on excitement and emotion of being drafted by Phoenix, “To come from a small town like Anderson, it felt really good because making the pros was never a realistic expectation growing up. I just loved to play basketball and play hard, and because of playing hard things worked out. When I realized I was going to get the opportunity to go to Phoenix and play, it was just awesome. Upon arriving in the pro’s, I continued to play the only way that I know how to play, and that’s just work hard and try to develop to make myself better. That approach turned out a successful basketball career.” It didn’t take him long to blossom into a superstar as he participated and won the 1984 Slam Dunk Championship contest, following in the high flying footsteps of his hero, Dr. J Julius Erving. The trade that brought Nance to Cleveland would go down as one of the signature moves of the Wayne Embry era.
However, it was a rough trade at first for Nance as he explains, “At the time it was the worst thing that could happen to me because I loved playing in Phoenix, plus I loved race cars and was able to get to the track several times a week. I was under the impression that if you played hard and kept your nose clean you would always be with the same team. The night I got traded I was upset, because it was cold in Cleveland. There were two places I never wanted to play and that was Cleveland and New York. It was the worst time in my life filled with pressure because I was supposed to bring the change. Then, I met my new teammates and things began to change.
I started to be around them and play with them and realized what great people they were with the great coaches that we had and things started changing, we started winning. All of a sudden this trade turned out to be the best thing in my life. I became best friends with “Hot Rod”. We became a very successful team with a great point guard. Things just began to work out better and I became very happy to be here.”
