Luke Travers Drafted to the Cleveland Cavaliers

With pick 56, the Cleveland Cavaliers have selected Perth Wildcats young gun Luke Travers in the second round of the 2022 NBA Draft.

Cleveland was one of eight teams Travers had worked out with in the lead up to the draft, with other teams including reigning Champions Golden State Warriors, Sacramento Kings, Phoenix Suns, Minnesota Timberwolves, Dallas Mavericks, Los Angeles Clippers and the Indiana Pacers.

Travers said he was speechless when he heard the news.

“It’s pretty cool, when they say you’re speechless, you really are,” he said.

“It was a cool experience, I got to share it with my mum over the phone.”

Being selected later in the second round, Travers said he was starting to feel a little nervous.

“I knew if I was going to get picked up it would be towards the end, once it got to around pick 50, I was anxiously waiting,” he said.

“Eventually I got another from my agent who just quickly said ‘make sure you’re watching’ so once it got to there, I was a little bit nervous, the Golden State pick came around and I thought it was that one, but then it wasn’t.

“Then I got another call from my agent saying ‘congrats’ and stuff like that, the pick hadn’t even been announced yet so I found out that way, and then it came through on the TV which was definitely cool to see.”  

A product of the Basketball WA high-performance program, 20-year-old Travers becomes the first Perth-born basketball player to be drafted to the NBA.

Travers said the next step for him is to focus on the NBA Summer League.

“Right now, just trying to focus on Summer League, so will get over to Cleveland maybe at the end of the month and start training with them and try and put my best foot forward and go from there,” he said.

Travers has represented Australia on the international stage on a number of occasions in his junior career, including being an integral part of Australia’s Gold Medal-winning U16 Asia Cup side in 2017.

Signing as a Perth Wildcats development player in 2019, Travers was elevated to the main roster for the 2021-22 NBL season, where, with his incredible athleticism, high-flying dunks and golden, flowing mullet, he fast became a cult-hero among the Red Army.

Travers will now join the Cleveland Cavaliers team for the NBA Summer League that gets underway in Las Vegas on July 7.