Mario Hezonja said Cleveland pursued him for roughly 18 months before he left Real Madrid and returned to the NBA with the Cavaliers.
Mario Hezonja signed with the Cleveland Cavaliers on July 31, ending four seasons with Real Madrid and a run of more than five years in Europe. His last NBA season was 2019-20, when the Portland Trail Blazers finished the season in the league's Orlando bubble.
Cavaliers Pursued Hezonja for More Than a Year
Cleveland's interest started well before this summer, Hezonja said Monday at media day at Rocket Arena, and included a chance to join the Cavaliers before a Real Madrid season was over.
"Obviously, Koby and the entire front office were on me for the past year and a half, and that was a big opportunity also to come before, to go finish the season with the team, and then you have the next year already knowing everybody, the personnel and all that," Hezonja said. "But I didn't feel at that time that I don't want to be loyal, and that I want to leave the team in a bad situation. We had a very rough season two years ago. We didn't even know if we're going to be in the playoffs."
"But yeah, the feeling was always that I'm ready," Hezonja continued. "I just wanted to accomplish all of these things that I haven't before."
Koby Altman is Cleveland's president of basketball operations. Hezonja's one-year contract is worth $2.85 million, his agent, Michael Tellem of Excel Sports Management, told ESPN's Shams Charania.
He was the first player the Cavaliers added this offseason apart from the draft, and the minimum salary kept Cleveland $35.5 million under the second apron at the time, ESPN's Bobby Marks reported.
Leaving Madrid took several days. Bleacher Report reported in late July that the sides were working through a dispute over his EuroLeague contract and that Hezonja had turned down conditional offers from three EuroLeague clubs, citing BasketNews' Donatas Urbonas. EuroLeague announced on July 31 that he and Real Madrid had parted ways.
Hezonja Wanted to Return to NBA After Accomplishing Goals in Europe
Clubs in Europe backed every goal he set, Hezonja said. Returning to the NBA remained an option, but he wanted to come back after proving more overseas.
"It was an option through all of these years that I went back. But when I knew I wanted to go back home, I was after the bubble, and I wanted to — it's very, I guess, cool to say, I want to dominate. I want to be the best. I want to win everything. It's easy to say, but to do it is a little bit different story," Hezonja explained. "Because it was always a little bit bothering me, coming to NBA unaccomplished, very young."
"So definitely blessed and thankful to have clubs that wanted me, that supported me through all my goals and all my achievements, to win everything in every league that I played, with every club that I participated with," Hezonja added. "So that was big for me."
Hezonja spent three seasons in Orlando after the Magic drafted him fifth overall in 2015, then one with the New York Knicks in 2018-19 and one with Portland in 2019-20.
Portland cut him in December 2020. Panathinaikos signed him in February 2021, and he won the Greek league title that season. He spent 2021-22 with UNICS Kazan in Russia before joining Real Madrid.
Hezonja Won Multiple Titles With Real Madrid
In Madrid, Hezonja won the 2023 EuroLeague title and reached the championship game again in 2024 and 2026, according to EuroLeague.
Real Madrid also won the Spanish league in 2024 and 2025, the Spanish Cup in 2024, and the Spanish Super Cup in 2022 and 2023 with him on the roster.
He was named EuroLeague MVP for December 2023 and was voted the Liga ACB MVP for 2025-26. Earlier, as a teenager with Barcelona, he won the 2013-14 Spanish league title.
Hezonja Says American Offseason Approach Helped His Development
The summers, Hezonja said, were where he kept an American approach. He used them to add to his game, then had expanded roles in Europe that allowed him to put that work into practice.
"First is as a player, because you go back, and then I always love to have my American mindset about getting better in the summers and improving and adding layers to your game. So I could already do this here in summers, and then I get an opportunity to put those summers into entire seasons, multiple seasons in Europe," Hezonja said. "So that was huge for me, and obviously I had teams and clubs that were built around me, so that definitely just skyrocketed my mentality, my progress, because I'm all about basketball."
"There's no other things that I'm concentrating on. That was super helpful, and then you just see it level by level, game by game, season by season, you're just getting to the new heights, that there's individual awards start to come," Hezonja continued. "Not that they're so important in Europe, they will just wave the hand at you, but I want to win everything, individually and collectively. That started to be at the place where I started to get even more hungry to get the most difficult awards. So I finished with all of those, got all of those. There's still a few loose, but okay."
Hezonja started his professional career with KK Dubrovnik at 14, according to EuroLeague, then played for KK Zagreb and joined FC Barcelona as a teenager. He was born in Dubrovnik and turned 31 in February.
The Cavaliers begin the regular season on Oct. 22 at the Philadelphia 76ers.
