Fresh Coast Cavaliers - Cleveland Cavaliers Blog

Source: Yahoo! Sports

At the age of 82, Ted Stepien, former majority owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers died in his Willoughby Hills home this past Monday.

Stepien was known for trading away his future first-round draft picks. The NBA passed the “Stepien Rule” to prohibit teams from trading away its future draft picks in consecutive years.

Stepien sold the Cavaliers to brothers, George and Gordon Gund for $20 million in 1983.

Due to the leniency of the other NBA owners, the Cavaliers were given bonus first round picks from 1983-86 to compensate for the ones that Stepien wasted.

Stepien was a war veteran, serving in WWII as a navigator-bomber with the rank of lieutenant.

Calling hours for Stepien will be on Friday at Schulte & Mahon-Murphy Funeral Home in Lyndhurst. Services will be held the following day, 10 a.m. at St. Francis of Assisi Church in Gates Mills.

R.I.P. Ted Stepien
(Deceased: 09-10-2007).

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 12th, 2007 at 9:36 pm and is filed under Cleveland Cavaliers. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.