Cavs Atop the NBA, Charge Find a New Home, and the Rockers are Back?!

Cleveland is widely known as a football city, but hopefully for fans, the historically disappointing Browns season has been overshadowed by the excitement of basketball during this 2024-2025 season. The Cavaliers began with the franchise’s best start to a season, the second-best start for any NBA season overall, and the best record for any head coach starting with a new team. The Wine & Gold continue their exceptional season, going into the All-Star break with a league best 44-10 record and having four players, along with head coach Kenny Atkinson, selected to participate in the All-Star game and festivities. During the All-Star weekend, Donovan Mitchell and Evan Mobley represented the Cavs to win the 2025 Kia Skills Challenge. Fans are looking forward to the Cavs continuing their strong efforts through the regular season and into the playoffs. Last year, the Cavaliers finished with the fourth best record in the Eastern Conference but were defeated in the Conference Semifinals by the Boston Celtics. With the Cavs looking even better than they did last year, there is hope that the team could be a serious championship contender. 

The NBA G-League's Cleveland Charge (formerly the Canton Charge) have made a new home for themselves in the Cleveland Public Auditorium on Lakeside Avenue in Downtown Cleveland. They previously played in the Wolstein Center and the Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse. The move has been coupled with a polished social media campaign promoting the unique and vintage arena space. The vintage aesthetic is no farce with the building being over 100 years old and being a staple within Cleveland’s music and Rock-and-Roll history. Over its many years, the auditorium was primarily a music hall that hosted acts such as The Beatles, Queen, and Jimi Hendrix. Now the Charge have moved in to showcase the exciting talent from players like forward Emoni Bates and guard Luke Travers. 

During this season, Cleveland Cavaliers and Rocket Mortgage owner Dan Gilbert has been active off the court in other sport-related developments downtown. Breaking ground in October of 2024, the Riverfront Project by Gilbert-owned development company Bedrock will feature the new Cleveland Clinic Global Peak Performance Center on the shore of the Cuyahoga River. The center will focus on athletic training and injury recovery. It will also be the location for the Cavaliers’ new training facility, with the team currently training at their facility in Independence. So far, there is not an official projection of when the center will be completed. On top of all that, the Rocket Mortgage Fieldhouse has been renamed to the Rocket Arena. The name change will be another confusing adjustment for the fans, as many Clevelanders still know the building as “the Q” or even the Gund Arena. 

In November of 2024, Cavs owner Dan Gilbert and the Rocket Entertainment Group launched a $250 million bid to bring a WNBA expansion team to Cleveland. While the city is not yet guaranteed to win the bid, recent reporting gives a 90% chance that Cleveland will receive the team. The Cleveland expansion team would be a revival of the Cleveland Rockers. The Rockers were a founding member of the WNBA from 1997 until it was dissolved in 2003 due to financial hardship and lack of attendance. The Rockers would likely be joining the league in more stable footing than they left it, now having Dan Gilbert leading the ownership effort and nationwide increased excitement for women’s professional basketball due to high-profile players such as Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese entering the league. The Rockers would begin play in 2028 and would share the Rocket Arena with the Cavaliers and the Cleveland Monsters.