Cleveland Charge

The Cleveland Charge is an American professional basketball team in the NBA G League based in Cleveland, Ohio, and are affiliated with the Cleveland Cavaliers. The team plays its home games at the Wolstein Center in downtown Cleveland. The franchise was founded in 2001 as the Huntsville Flight, based in Huntsville, Alabama, before moving to Albuquerque, New Mexico in 2005, where they were known as the Albuquerque Thunderbirds until 2010. After playing the 2010–11 season in suburban Rio Rancho as the New Mexico Thunderbirds, the franchise was purchased by the Cavaliers and relocated to Canton, Ohio, where they played as the Canton Charge through the 2020–21 season. The team has made the championship finals twice, once when playing in Huntsville and the other time when playing in Albuquerque; the team lost in 2004 and won the title in 2006. Since the move to Ohio, they have reached the semifinal round three times in 2012, 2015, and 2016. They are one of three surviving teams from the original eight that first played in the 2001-02 season, and are also one of only four teams to reach the playoffs at least ten times in league history. History The team was formed in 2001 as the Huntsville Flight based in Huntsville, Alabama, as a founding member of the NBA Development League, the affiliate minor league of the National Basketball Association (NBA). They played home games at the Von Braun Center. In their first two seasons, they failed to make the playoffs, but in their third they reached the NBA D-League Finals, losing to the Asheville Altitude. The team ended its tenure in Alabama at the conclusion of the 2004–05 season after finishing third in the league and making the playoffs. The Flight were not affiliated with an NBA team.