<div class="quote_poster">Quote:</div><div class="quote_post">This is for Z, who's probably leaving. To judge by my mail, Cavaliers center Zydrunas Ilgauskas is special only in standing 7-foot-3. "Z is a big European stiff," one person wrote. These critics keep thinking we're back in the days before basketball glasnost, when players from Europe had the style and grace of a science project built during a thunderstorm in a Transylvanian castle. That was then. This is an era of basketball without borders. European players today can shoot, which covers up many weaknesses. Coaches say you can't teach height. Well, how about instruction in making the intermediate jumper? I gave the Cavs a decent chance to win a playoff game against Miami, had they qualified, because Z's mangled right ring finger had improved enough for him to sink 18-foot jump shots in the season's last game. If the big man could make that shot consistently, Shaquille O'Neal would have had to come out to guard him. Then LeBron James might conduct a sweeter "jam session" than Dizzy Gillespie ever managed with his funky horn. </div> Source
This is true. You heard more and more cavs fans writing Z off as a nobody because they got the feeling he was leaving. Well, yeah, he probably will leave, but he gave his everything to this organization, and I respect him for that. His skill set as a 7'3" center makes him such a rare commodity these days. I saw him this year get Shaq and Duncan into foul trouble with his inside moves, so don't believe that his only skill is sinking that 18 foot jumper (even though that is what makes him deadly) Lebron lobbied for this guy all year untill he realized that he's not coming back, at which point LBJ said he would only campaign for Z if he asked him to.
^I agree that Z is a rare commodity and is most likely the 4th or 5th best center in the league behind only Shaq, Duncan, and Amare.
