Today, we moved over to the starting center position for the big man, Zydrunas Ilgauskas …

When I was 16 ... I grew like four or five inches over the summer. Then you could really tell the difference between from one school year to the next.

I have been playing basketball ... since I was six years old, so it was like a career decision even before I grew this big.

I have one sister ... who’s about six feet tall, but she’s not an athlete. I don’t want her to have anything to do with sports. She went to college and got an education. She’s a good kid; she did it the right way. One of the kids went to school – it wasn’t going to be me.

My mom wasn’t really keen ... on the sport, but my dad came to every game. He’s a big fan of basketball, so I think it was contagious from him. We used to watch games together and talk about them. He really loved it.

The best coach I ever had was ... my high school coach. He really instilled good fundamentals in me and it stuck. It was hard, but I was really thankful when I left because it obviously paid off later down the road.

I always wanted to play ... for my hometown team because you see your heroes growing up. I never thought about the NBA. That came further down the road.

The only other sport ... that I played was soccer. That’s about it. I guess I stopped playing when I got too tall and guys got too fast.