The Cleveland Cavaliers have been on the struggle bus of late, continuing with a brutal home loss to the Portland Trail Blazers on Wednesday evening. It was another strong game for Donovan Mitchell in this one, but as has often been the case this year, Cleveland got a rough game from Darius Garland and some other key supporting cast members, sinking their record to 13-10 on the 2025-26 season.
Garland hasn't been quite able to put it together this year as he returns from injury, and recently, the Cavs got some tough news regarding their pockets after the way they handled their point guard's availability in late November.
“The Cleveland Cavaliers have been fined $250,000 for violating the league’s Player Participation Policy,” reported ClutchPoints NBA insider Brett Siegel on X, formerly Twitter.
“The league says Darius Garland, a star player under the policy, was able to play in one of their two games on Nov. 23 and Nov. 24, but the team did not make him available for their nationally-televised game on Nov. 24 against Toronto,” he added.
The NBA has indeed cracked down on players being available for national TV games so as to help their bottom line, and it appears that the Cavs did not follow protocol when creating their lineups for that set of games. Garland instead played on November 23 in what turned out to be a Cavs win over the Los Angeles Clippers at home, before sitting out against the Raptors the following night on national TV.
Still, in the meantime, the Cavs have bigger fish to fry, including trying to figure out how to get Garland playing at the All-Star level he was throughout last season. If the season ended today, the Cavs would be in the play-in game.
The Cavs will next take the court on Friday evening at home against the San Antonio Spurs.
