Every NBA team’s greatest enforcer of all time

Cleveland Cavaliers — Anderson Varejao

From enforcer legends Laimbeer and Lanier to Rodman and Artest, and now… Anderson Varejao! (This list is division by division.) Varejao gets the short end of the stick here, but nowhere close to the shortest end of the stick that he got from the Cleveland Cavaliers. Varejao played 11 full seasons for the Cavs and 53 games of the 2015-16 season before being sent to Portland in a three-team trade that landed the Cavs one Channing Frye. That was, of course, the season that the Cavs went on to win the Finals, the first championship for the city of Cleveland in 52 long, long years. Even worse, Varejao was waived by Portland after the trade and proceeded to sign with the Golden State Warriors — precisely the team that the Cavs beat in the Finals in the most dramatic fashion. (Cleveland did try to offer Varejao a ring, but he refused it.)

For 12 straight years, Varejao brought high energy to the court for the Cavs on a nightly basis. When Varejao checked in, you knew he was going to fluster somebody. The 6-foot-10 273-pound Brazilian had big hair that flapped in the breeze as he bounded up the court like a swaying palm tree. Even better, he looked just like Sideshow Bob from the Simpsons. Varejao was asked to do a lot of the nitty-gritty work for the Cavs, and he did just that. He was a low-level enforcer but an enforcer nonetheless.