“The Cleveland Cavaliers today announced that Zydrunas Ilgauskas is joining the team’s front office as Special Assistant to the General Manager. The announcement was made today by Cavs General Manager Chris Grant. In his role as Special Assistant to the General Manager, Ilgauskas will be involved with front office responsibilities, including evaluation of amateur and professional prospects.” [NBA.com]
“Emotionally, bringing Z back is really important to me as a fan. Austin Carr will always be “Mr. Cavalier”, but to my generation, Zydrunas Ilgauskas represents those same traits. It’s a mix of longevity and loyalty in the face of crippling injuries, a warm personality, and an embracing of Cleveland as a second home. I know the knee-jerk reaction is to say “this is just a publicity stunt by our owner who’s always got an agenda”. I’m not that cynical. Sometimes, an agreement between two parties just makes too much sense to not occur. How else does a former player get a start in the front office anyway? Wayne Embry and Danny Ferry needed someone to give them their first gig. Ferry and Ilgauskas remain close friends, and no doubt Ferry has communicated to Z what it takes to evaluate players from a front office perspective.” [Kirk at WFNY]
“Last fall, USA TODAY published an article about the Duke men’s basketball team, in which head coach Mike Krzyzewski compared then-Duke star Kyrie Irving to NBA All-Star Chris Paul. When told of those comments last month in an interview with USA TODAY, Irving paused, then said, ‘There’s only one Kyrie Irving.’ While a comparison to Paul may be bold, Irving’s performance through his first 13 games can draw comparisons not only to Paul, but is also surpassing what LeBron James did as a rookie for the Cleveland Cavaliers.” [Justin Havens]
Why is it that the two most positive articles about the Cavs and their players are from sources outside of the Cleveland area?
The Clevelanders are busy hoping they lose so they can get a better lottery pick.
Was that Kyrie Irving quote meant to sound cocky?
Kofi:
I think he’s distancing himself from needless comparisons, which will be brought up any time he falters. “You know, MJ never would have left for another team to join up with…” Stuff like that.
I’ve never liked it when any rookie/college player starts getting compared to all-stars/likely HOFers. It’s not fair, can add unneccesary pressure and really just doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. I further don’t like comparisons between a rookies ‘partial season’ and another players ‘full rookie season’. I don’t think looking at Kyrie’s first 13 games (against the second worst schedule in the league to this point) can really fairly be compared to LBJ’s, Magics or CP3′s full rookie seasons. It’s great to say he’s getting off to a really good start and look at how much better the team is with him on the floor versus without him. But to somehow suggest (or outwardly say) he’s a better rookie than ____, just isn’t reasonable to me. Once the season is over, and you have a much wider dataset, then we can put Kyrie’s season up against someone elses and then only say who had a better rookie season (stat wise), still wouldn’t make arguments for how his career will compare to _______.
Also, I think that sometimes making these early comparisons to ‘great’ players can make the rookie either cocky or nervous. Neither case is good. I don’t think that Kyrie is made the comment about there only ‘being one Kyrie’ as a cocky type of statement (at least I really hope not), I hope he meant it as a Joke and had a smile on his face or just as a way to say that he shouldn’t be compared to anybody (which I agree with).
Oh well, it’s just nice to see him getting some more national recognition and attention. Hopefully that increases his ‘publicity’ and likelyhood of winning ROY honors.