Kenny Atkinson Makes Candid Admission About Mario Hezonja’s Cavaliers Role

Kenny Atkinson is still working to define Mario Hezonja's role with the Cleveland Cavaliers, the coach said Monday, three days before Hezonja's first NBA regular-season game since the 2019-20 season.

Pick-and-roll could end up in Hezonja's package. Atkinson has seen flashes of it.

"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."

"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.'"

Cleveland landed the 31-year-old Croatian in late July on a one-year, $2.8 million deal, struck after LeBron James picked the Philadelphia 76ers and after free agency had already taken Dean Wade to Philadelphia, Keon Ellis to Brooklyn, and Larry Nance Jr. to Indiana. Golden State had chased him too.

Real Madrid confirmed the split on July 31. Over his four seasons there, the club said, he won six titles, two of them Spanish league championships and one a Copa del Rey.

Spain's Liga ACB named him MVP last season, when he put up 13.3 points, 4.0 rebounds, and 2.4 assists a game. Only one Real Madrid teammate outscored his 13.2 points per game in the EuroLeague.

Real Madrid reached the EuroLeague final in Athens on May 24 and fell to Olympiacos, 92-85, with Hezonja scoring 19 on 7-of-14 shooting to go with five assists and four rebounds.

When Hezonja gets downhill, help has to come. Reading that help in NBA games is still part of what he is learning, Jarrett Allen said.

"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 first NBA run lasted five seasons. Orlando drafted him fifth overall in 2015 and kept him three years, and after a 2018-19 season with the New York Knicks he finished in Portland, averaging 4.8 points and 3.5 rebounds over 53 games in 2019-20.

He left the league with career averages of 6.9 points, 3.1 rebounds, and 1.3 assists, then played EuroLeague ball for Panathinaikos and UNICS Kazan before Real Madrid signed him.

Hezonja's first training camp with Cleveland was in Spain. Practices ran at The Embassy in Fuengirola starting Sept. 30, and camp closed with an Oct. 4 scrimmage at Martín Carpena Arena in Málaga.

The schedule there kept Allen from exploring as much as he wanted.

"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 coached at a Basketball Without Borders Europe camp at the same facility in 2024, when he was a Golden State Warriors assistant.

Cleveland then went 1-2 in three preseason games in the United States.

Thursday's opener in Philadelphia is set for 7 p.m. ET on ESPN.