Le Basketbawl

Some see the glass as half full, others see the glass as half empty. I come from a different school of thought; I want to know what’s inside the glass, and if we should even be concerned at all with it’s contents. In other words, I take nothing at face value, I learned at a very young age to question authority, and not to believe everything I read, or see. George Orwell said over half a century ago if you tell a lie often enough people will believe it. I think it is more true as we come to the end of the first decade of the new millennium than it was when the famous author made the statement.

The Cleveland Cavaliers this past Summer made some moves that put them in the elite status in the NBA. Cleveland traded for Mo Williams from the Milwaukee Bucks and re-signed their own restricted free agent guard Delonte West solidifying their back court, which took them from just another very good team in the Association to a club which through the first thirty-plus games has been mentioned in the same breath as the Boston Celtics, and the Los Angeles Lakers.

Cleveland however has recently lost a key member of their front court starting center Zydrunas Ilgauksas, for reportedly the next month. “Z” is out recovering from a broken talus bone in his left ankle. I spoke with an unnamed NBA source on Monday who told me that the Ilgauskas injury is truly not that serious and that Cavaliers officials are convinced that the month off is all their veteran center needs to regain his health.

 Unfortunately I remember hearing those same confident statements from the team concerning their center’s feet problems while I was covering the team as a Sports Radio reporter in the Cleveland market almost a decade ago. It didn’t work out as easily as the team thought it would back then.

I was covering the 1996 NBA Draft in the then named Gund Arena the night that Zydrunas Ilgauskas was selected with pick number 20 in the first round. Ilgauskas was the second first round pick that Cleveland had that night, the first pick was taken on another Eastern European big man Vitaly Potapenko, a player whose most memorable part of his career in the Association may have been the various pronounciations of his last name. 

“Z” had talent but he also had baggage namely bad feet, his first season in the Association was spent recovering from foot surgery. it would be just one of many that the stoic warrior would endure over the next few seasons.  Ilgauskas was healthy the next season, and with rookies, Derek Anderson, Cedric Henderson, Brevin Knight, and the still relatively slender Shawn Kemp the Cavaliers were suddenly the new hot team. At the end of the season, General Manager Wayne Embry signed all the rookies to huge contracts. It all fell apart starting the next season.

Ilgauksas went through a series of operations on his feet completely reconstructing them over the next couple of years. He would play just 5 games the following season, and Cleveland head coach Mike Fratello was fired at the end of the year. Randy Wittman came in as a rookie head coach, promising a more uptempo style of play then the 1954 slow down offense that Fratello had been utilizing. It worked for the first 24 games of the campaign as Z led the team to a fantastic start. Then he hurt his feet, he was supposed to be sidelined for just a few weeks. He would not play again until 20 games into the next season.

John Lucas was the Cleveland coach at that point, and on strict orders from General Manager Jim Paxson to keep the center to a certain number of minutes, no matter what the status of the game was. Cleveland did not win a lot of games that year, or the following season as Luke was fired replaced mid-season by interim coach Keith Smart. The Cavaliers were so bad that season that they ended up with the number one pick in the lottery, and got a young high school player from nearby Akron, by the name of LeBron James.

My last media day covering the Cavaliers was at the start of the 2005-2006 season. It was the first year I did not have to ask Ilgauskas about his feet, it was also the first time the Cavaliers made the NBA Playoffs since the first year that the center actually played.

I have been told that Ilgauskas’ current problems with his left foot are completely unrelated to his earlier history. This could have happened to anybody I have been told, and that’s all well and good. I may have been raised in Boston, and covered the NBA in Cleveland, but when it comes to “Z“ I’m like the guy from Missouri, you have to show me. LeBron James is a once in a lifetime type of star, Williams and West have taken this team to a new level, but without Ilgauksas, the Cavaliers will never reach the heights that they showed the capacity to when the lineup was whole.