Where Are They Now: Craig Ehlo
The Cleveland Cavaliers shooting guard/small forward from 1986-1993 remembers the most infamous moment of his career: The Shot.
Chicago Bulls superstar Michael Jordan launched his team into the second round of the 1989 NBA playoffs by making a game-winning shot over Ehlo, normally a good defender who had been slowed a bit that day by a foot injury. Still, up to that point, he’d had a pretty good game, too, with 24 points.
Ehlo says he doesn’t resent that the moment is what he’s remembered for most by Clevelanders.
“I really don’t mind,” he insists. He says he is satisfied with his 14-year NBA career, especially with the seven years he spent here. During his time with the Cavs, Ehlo scored 5,103 points, grabbed 2,267 rebounds and tossed out 1,803 assists.
“My teammates were great, we had good teams, and the city loved us,” he remembers.
Today, Craig Ehlo is 48 years old, and he couldn’t be happier. He’s in a place he loves (Spokane, Wash.) with people he loves (his wife and three children) doing something he loves (watching basketball for a living). A color analyst on Fox Sports Network, he’s in his fourth year covering Gonzaga basketball. He previously covered the Seattle Sonics.
“The coaches are all good friends of mine,” Ehlo says. “It’s a perfect situation.”
Ehlo and Jani, his wife of 24 years, still have two of their three children at home. Erica, 21, plays volleyball at Grand Canyon University, a private Christian university in Phoenix; 18-year-old Austin is a senior in high school; and 13-year-old Gavin — “my caboose,” Ehlo calls him — is a seventh-grader.
Ehlo doesn’t get back to Cleveland much, but he likes that the city has a team it can love again. “Danny Ferry was a teammate of mine, and he’s done a great job there,” he says. “We played in Richfield, and I lived in Akron, so I don’t know the city of Cleveland all that well. But the city really supported us then, so it would be nice to come back and say thanks now.
