by Jason Lloyd
Plenty of people believe the experience with Hughes and Wechsler impacted the relationship between Brown and Irving, but to what extent will never be known. What’s clear is a disconnect existed between Irving’s advisers and the Cavs. There was tension between Grant and Wechsler and tension between Brown and Wechsler. The Cavs were aware that Irving’s father, Drederick, constantly criticized Brown’s decisions and his coaching style in the VIP lounge adjacent to the court during home games. Those within Irving’s inner circle began hinting early during his third season that he might need to get out of Cleveland. Irving strongly refuted that idea whenever asked and grew frustrated that it became a recurring topic. It’s still a sensitive issue for him even today.
“Y’all were some fuckers,” Irving says now of the media.
He has always had a contentious relationship with reporters, likely because of what he endured entering the league. There were so many comparisons between him and James since both went to Cleveland as number one picks. Irving had the unfortunate timing of arriving before the ashes of James’s departure even cooled, so he was left to answer plenty of questions he’d never expected about LeBron. Add in the rumors that he wanted out and it’s easy to see the root of his frustration.
“It was all the attention of what was going to be Cleveland after [LeBron’s leaving],” Irving said. “Everyone was jockeying for position. Who was going to have the first story? It started off with me, then we’re seeing what goes on with Coach Scott. Everyone wanted to have the first story about who was going to get traded, what Kyrie was feeling today, who was going to do this, then who are we going to draft? Everyone was trying to be that Cleveland breakout story because after ’Bron left, everything else that came out of here was negative. Everyone was jockeying for position on who was going to release this story on this, and I was that guy that took most of those hits.”
Irving’s correct in that most of the stories were negative. Of course, there isn’t much positive to write about a team that didn’t spend money in free agency and compiled the worst cumulative record during the four years James was in Miami. Even though there was a long game in play, it was often difficult for most to see.
“It was something I had to get used to,” Irving says now. “It’s what has helped me grow in a lot of ways and helped me understand what goes on in this NBA world. It’s ridiculously political, it comes with a lot of extra attention, sometimes unwarranted. But hey, you guys have a job, too, as well as we do. You’ve just got to leave it there and understand that if you believe in yourself as much as you say you do, then everyone else’s opinion doesn’t really matter. This life outside of basketball, what’s supposed to matter to me in terms of what the media puts out, what’s important and what I go home and think about, it’s not realistic. It’s not real. Everyone plays the guessing game, everyone has this particular person who’s the source. Everyone has this story to put out and that’s not my life. I don’t live by those terms. I don’t live by what goes in the newspaper. It’s not real for me.”
As for Brown, Irving later said he was trying to teach him, then just a kid, how to lead a franchise.
“Was I ready for that? Probably not,” Irving says now. “There wasn’t one time where Coach Brown wasn’t trying to elevate me into being in that position. Mentally, I didn’t know how. It was an overload. I was trying to play basketball, I still had individual goals, I still had things I wanted to do, and ultimately being the leader, you have to give a part of yourself up for the greater good of the team. That’s all he was trying to get me to realize. Playing harder defensively, knowing everyone’s plays, knowing where everyone is offensively, and understanding spots. Just understanding what’s going on and everything that goes on with the team. I had to be in control of that.”
Irving was excited for his third season. In the days before Scott was fired, he referenced players like Chris Paul, Kevin Durant, and, yes, LeBron—guys who took a leap their third season and whose teams exploded around them. James averaged 31.4 points during his third season, still his career high, and the Cavs won fifty games, reached the playoffs, and even won their first-round series. That also happened to be Brown’s first year as coach. Similarly, Durant led the league in scoring during his third season (30.1 points per game), and the Thunder won fifty games and advanced to the playoffs for the first time. It was the same story with Paul, who led the league in assists (11.6 per game) and steals (2.7) per game while averaging 22.8 points and guiding the Hornets to fifty-six wins and the second round of the playoffs. Irving was expecting the same kind of leap: a career year in terms of numbers, a winning record for the first time, and a return trip to the playoffs. But it didn’t work out that way. While he was elected a starter to the All-Star game for the first time, his scoring was down and his shooting percentage was worse.
More importantly, the Cavs weren’t exploding; they were imploding. They struggled terribly to start the season, ending November just 5-12. They lost six straight to close December and slumped to 10-21 entering January. They were yet again outside the playoff picture trying to dig their way up, and by January they were doing so without Bynum. He and Brown had clashed at times during their days together with the Lakers, and some of those problems carried over to Cleveland. Brown kicked him out of practice one day in late December when Bynum kept shooting the ball whenever he touched it, regardless of where he was on the floor. It wasn’t just that one incident; it just happened to be the final incident. By the end, the Cavs were convinced that the rumors were true and that Bynum didn’t particularly enjoy playing basketball. He was just a monster of a man, he was a good player, and basketball had made him rich, so he played. But his heart wasn’t in it. He was suspended for the incident in late December and told basically to stay away from the team. As the team previously feared going in, the experiment had failed.
“We’ve got fourteen guys in that locker room who are very focused and determined and ready to take on any challenge that’s in front of them,” Brown said the day Bynum was suspended. “They’re great guys, they’re focused guys, and they know how to play the game the right way, and that’s what I’m focused on, just helping those guys win.”
The Cavs began shopping Bynum immediately, eventually trading him ten days later, prior to the deadline when his full $12 million contract became guaranteed. The Cavs dealt him and the first-round pick they received from the Kings in the Hickson deal to Chicago for Luol Deng. The Bulls waived Bynum immediately, wanting only his unique contract to get them out of the luxury tax. The Cavs violated their own rule not to trade future picks, but the pick from the Kings had heavy protections on it, and it was unclear at the time if it would ever vest into the first-round pick they hoped it would be when they acquired it.
Deng was in the final year of his contract, but the Cavs were hopeful they’d found a piece who could stabilize the locker room, bring veteran leadership, and reinforce Brown’s defense-first message. His agent was Herb Rudoy, who also represented Zydrunas Ilgauskas, one of Grant’s close friends. Rudoy and Grant had a good relationship and Grant envisioned Deng as a piece that could play long-term in Cleveland next to James if they could persuade him to return. It would take some cap machinations, but it was all doable.
As for how it pertained to the 2013–14 season, it was a Hail Mary. The Cavs were 11-23 at the time in the pitiful Eastern Conference and three games out of the final playoff spot, but they needed to climb over five other teams to get there. More alarming, they were only three and a half games ahead of the league’s worst record. Pressure was mounting on Grant. His job was on the line and the prospect of James’s returning seemed to be fading away.
Ultimately, Deng wasn’t enough to save anything. He came from a strict culture in Chicago under Tom Thibodeau and quickly realized how chaotic things were in Cleveland. The Cavs lost an embarrassing road game at Sacramento, 124–80, in his second game with the team and the season slowly circled the drain. Teammat
es complained about Waiters and Irving, the two young stars just trying to find their way. Video clips of Irving ignoring his teammates quickly went viral. Irving was constantly dribbling through three defenders to shoot while Waiters stood on the perimeter waving his hands for the ball. “He’ll give you the ball one time,” one Cavs player said of Irving. “And if you miss, you won’t see it again.” Waiters, meanwhile, “doesn’t think anything is his fault,” another player said, while Irving was “acting like he doesn’t care.”
After a dismal home loss to New Orleans near the end of January dropped them to 16-29, Brown said the team’s “competitive spirit [was] nonexistent.” It was all enough to make Grant finally face the media—something he loathed doing. Grant typically only formally addressed reporters on media day, on draft day, and if they made a trade. But with the Dumpster officially on fire, Grant was forced to answer for a season that was falling woefully short of expectations. It was ultimately his last press conference.
“The lack of effort is just not acceptable,” he said. “It’s not who we are and who we want to be. It’s got to be addressed head-on. There’s no excuses for that, but we’ve seen our guys compete and execute consistently and that’s really what we’ve got to do a better job of.”
His speech had little impact. The Cavs were embarrassed and dismantled at Madison Square Garden on national television the next night, 117–86. After the game, Irving had to answer another round of questions about his future since ESPN draft guru Chad Ford had reported earlier in the day that Irving was privately telling people he wanted out of Cleveland.
“I’m still in my rookie contract and I’m happy to be here,” Irving said after the loss to the Knicks, but he wouldn’t say whether he’d accept the contract extension waiting for him after the season. “It’s still too early to say. I’m still trying to get through this season. Everybody is trying to antagonize this team and put it on me. I’m here for my teammates, I’m here for Coach Brown and the coaching staff, and I’m going to play my heart out every single night for the Cleveland Cavaliers.”
The timing of Ford’s report was curious. People within the Cavs believed he waited until the team was in New York—the world’s media capital—as payback for Grant not telling him who the Cavs were taking number one in the draft the year before. Ford maintained throughout each of his seven mock drafts the Cavs would take Noel, but they had actually eliminated him as a candidate for the top pick early on in their process. It was the first time Ford had ever missed on the number one pick in his final mock draft and people within the Cavs wondered if this was his way of getting even.
By the time the Lakers arrived in Cleveland on February 5, 2014, the pressure within the organization was enough to make the Q’s roof rumble. The Lakers were struggling through their own hellish season and brought just eight healthy bodies to the game. Didn’t matter. They were still embarrassing the Cavs by twenty-one at halftime and twenty-eight in the third quarter as a stunned home crowd booed the lethargy and ineptness. Then the Lakers’ Nick Young hurt his knee and Chris Kaman fouled out.
When Jordan Farmar went to the bench with a calf injury and four minutes left, the Lakers were out of subs as the Cavs rallied to close within ten. But when Robert Sacre fouled out, he was allowed to stay in the game because, well, there was no one left. In a season of Cleveland absurdity, this vaulted to the top of the list. The Lakers beat the Cavs 119–108 with just four eligible players remaining. Gilbert had seen enough. The embarrassing display, highlighted by Kaman stretched out across five chairs on the Lakers’ bench during the strangest game of the season, was Grant’s final night as the Cavs’ general manager. Gilbert summoned him to the Q and fired him the next morning. David Griffin was named interim general manager.
“We have what we need,” Gilbert said right after firing the man who had given him what he needed. “A general manager and a front office does more than just make tactical decisions on draft picks and trades and free-agent signings. At this point after the amount of time the former general manager had, we just felt it was time. We needed a shift in certain cultural aspects and a different environment.”
There is a general belief that drafting Bennett ultimately got Grant fired, which is ironic since Grant never wanted him. The free agent acquisitions of Jack, Bynum, and Clark were all disappointments. But that was as much ownership as the front office, losing patience and pushing to add veterans in an effort to make the playoffs. Mistakes were made along the way, but Chris Grant, the architect behind the plan to bring LeBron James back to Cleveland, was now gone, and with the Cavs tumbling further and further out of contention for the final playoff spot in the East, the whole thing seemed to be disintegrating anyway.
But in this theater of the absurd, Grant soon returned to the Q—for at least one memorable, ultimately hugely significant night.
CHAPTER 8
Z
Zydrunas Ilgauskas was a skinny twenty-one-year-old kid from Kaunas, Lithuania, when the Cavs selected him with the twentieth pick in the 1996 draft. Kaunas is located in south-central Lithuania and serves as the nation’s second-largest city. Ilgauskas experienced the collapse of the Soviet Union as a teenager and watched Lithuania become the first republic to gain its independence from the crumbling USSR. He grew up loving soccer and volleyball until his massive frame grew to seven foot three and basketball became the obvious career choice. It’s also Lithuania’s most popular sport. He didn’t know a syllable of English when he was suddenly dropped into the fast-paced culture of the NBA life.
He was quickly befriended by Danny Ferry upon arriving in Cleveland. Ferry played ten years in Cleveland before moving on to San Antonio. He eventually returned as the team’s general manager when Gilbert purchased the Cavs. During his playing days, Ferry helped acclimate Ilgauskas to American life and language. Ferry brought Grant to Cleveland as his assistant in 2005 and Grant struck up a friendship with Ilgauskas that remains today.
Ilgauskas missed all of his rookie season because of left foot surgery, and problems with that foot plagued him throughout the early years of his career. He scored sixteen points and grabbed sixteen rebounds in his NBA debut against Hakeem Olajuwon and the Houston Rockets and was ultimately named the MVP of the Rookie Game during All-Star Weekend, which Cleveland coincidentally hosted in 1997. But his foot problems persisted and Ilgauskas was limited to just twenty-nine games over the next three seasons. At only twenty-five years old, his career was in jeopardy. He endured five painful foot surgeries during his first six seasons, the final being a revolutionary procedure that inserted twelve screws into his foot and reshaped its arch. Ilgauskas was one of the first to have such a procedure, which left him with two different-sized shoes because his right foot was now a size bigger than his left.
To the surprise of most everyone, including Ilgauskas, the surgery worked. He enjoyed ten seasons without debilitating foot problems after he returned, eventually leaving Cleveland as the franchise leader in games played, rebounds, offensive rebounds, and blocked shots. He’s second in scoring behind only James. Ilgauskas was beloved by Cleveland, be it for his perseverance in coming back from the foot problems, his humble beginnings in Lithuania, or just his generally likable demeanor. He was loyal, hilarious, and a wonderful teammate.
Ilgauskas was in Cleveland for all seven of James’s years there. On the surface, the two appeared to be complete opposites with nothing in common, but James adored Z and the feeling was mutual. When the Cavs upset the Pistons to win the East and advance to the finals in 2007, one of the iconic images was James jumping into Ilgauskas’s arms. When James left for Miami in 2010, he wanted Z to go with him, and he did. It was an adjustment for everyone.
“It was so hard for me emotionally,” Ilgauskas said. “I remember sitting in Miami in the locker room looking at that Heat uniform. I couldn’t put it on right away. It probably took me fifteen minutes just to put it on.”
Ilgauskas never won that elusive
championship. The Heat lost to the Mavericks in the finals during his lone season in Miami, and then he retired. But at the encouragement of Ferry, Ilgauskas remained in the game following retirement. Ferry told him he was going to get bored and encouraged him to try something new, so Ilgauskas rejoined the Cavs as a special assistant to Grant. He spent two years learning the business side and exploring whether he wanted to pursue a career as a front-office executive. In the end, he chose to return to civilian life. But he remained beloved, and two years later, during the 2013–14 season, the franchise decided to retire his number 11 jersey. The team asked Ilgauskas to provide them with a guest list so they could make the proper arrangements and get everyone to Cleveland. The most prominent name on that list? LeBron James.
Obviously, this was going to pose a bit of a problem. The boos had certainly eased since James’s initial return game, and the cheers for James inside the Q seemed to swell a little bit every time the Heat returned. But the idea of James’s walking back into Quicken Loans Arena as a fan and spectator all seemed a little too surreal. But James’s presence that evening was important to Ilgauskas, who said he wasn’t sure if his jersey ever would have been retired if James had never played in Cleveland.
“Without LeBron getting drafted here, there’s a good chance my jersey’s not hanging in those rafters. Who knows? I might get traded or leave myself, just being tired from the losing,” Ilgauskas said. “Who knows how the story would’ve been written? It would’ve been a totally different chapter if he’d have been drafted by the Nuggets. He was part of the story of why my jersey was hanging there. That’s why I wanted him there.”
