SAN ANTONIO, June 6, 2007 -- With a nickname that isn’t found until the very end of the alphabet, it’s fitting that Zydrunas Ilgauskas had to go through A-Z in his NBA career before he could make it to The Finals.

There was the promising beginning as he learned his NBA ABC’s like a child prodigy. He was named MVP of the Schick Rookie Game in 1998 by putting in a game-high 18 points and made the All-Rookie First Team that year as one of only three rookies to play all 82 games.

But the promise was short lived. Instead of building on a successful rookie campaign, Ilgauskas almost lost the game completely.

All because of his left foot.

The Lithuania native had a fracture of the navicular bone in his left foot. It was a terribly painful ailment that threatened the basketball life of a man that stands 7-3, 260 pounds with his feet serving as the keystones, supporting all that mass above them. The injury kept Big Z out of the lineup in all but five games his sophomore season, out of every game in ’99-00 and out of all but 24 games in ’00-01.

“They had to break my heel bone and my first metatarsal to flatten the foot,” Ilgauskas revealed in front of a media throng at the AT&T Center during media availability on Thursday.

Seven years ago there were seven screws in that left foot of his, now he is a nimble enough to execute the delicate footwork required to set a high screen and roll out to the wing to spot up for an 18-footer.

It's a money 18-footer, too. From a guy who says he grew up idolizing another legendary Lithuanian, Advydas Sabonis, a sharp-shooing 7-footer, it's hardly surprising. At times these playoffs, like in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Finals when Big Z scored 22 points and was the Cavs No. 1 option down the stretch, Ilgauskas has looked like he did as a rookie, footloose and fancy free.

And so, just one day before the biggest game of his life, Zydrunas can look back at the complicated surgery and be confident he made the right decision to get it done.

"They didn't know if I was going to be able to play or not. It wasn't much up to me whether there was a procedure that could do anything for me at that point. So it took about a couple months to figure everything out and then obviously another year, year and a half of rehab."

“It could have an impact for the rest of your life, but it was worth it,” Ilgauskas said. “It was worth it.”

The center beat the odds as he fully recovered from the foot reconstruction to take the court once again. Ilgauskas returned better than ever, putting up 17.2 points and 7.5 rebounds per game in ’02-03 as he made the All-Star game as a reserve (and again in 2005).

Just as Big Z’s foot healed, the health of the Cavaliers’ franchise took a turn for the worse. Before making the postseason last year, the Cavs’ playoff draught stretched back to 1998 and despite’s Ilgauskas’ All-Star effort, Cleveland hit an all-time low in ‘02-03, as it went 17-65.

The good thing to come out of ’02-03, of course, was the No. 1 pick in the lottery that resulted in LeBron James. James' impact has put Cleveland back on the map, as they have 19 wins in the playoffs alone over the last two seasons to go with 100 regular season victories.

When the final horn sounded in Game 6 of the Pistons-Cavs series, Big Z was the first player that LeBron James sought out. James jumped into the veteran’s long arms and gave him a hug. One player who has had everything go right so far in his career spreading joy to another whose stars have been crossed at times.

"It's good for Z,” Cleveland coach Mike Brown said. “It's good for what he went through and to be here during this time. It's great that LeBron acknowledged and showed him the respect he deserves.”

The respect is well deserved, certainly. But so is the happiness rendered from overcoming so much. This season, years after he recovered from the physical anguish associated with his foot, Ilgauskas took a 10-day leave of absence from the team to deal with a private family issue during a mentally draining time that hurt his heart.

“I think he handled it like a professional,” said Cleveland forward Drew Gooden, a player who will share the task of trying to neutralize Tim Duncan this series. “He came back and he was ready. He never looked back and he continued to focus on his job, and that's playing basketball.”

Now in his 10th year, with Kevin Garnett as the only player in the league who has played on one team longer than Z, the hairs on the top of Ilgauskas’ head have thinned and the wrinkles that peek out around his eyes and line his forehead have multiplied. But, travelers on a journey are often likely to pick up a few things and leave a few more things behind on their way to their destination.

He isn't Cleveland's franchise player, but he is the only player to fully understand Cleveland's franchise.

“Everything has changed,” Ilgauskas said. “The owner, the coaches changed, the seats changed and the arena was renamed. It’s been a lot of changes. Even during those bad years I have good memories of good people and it was fun playing basketball. Since I’m the guy that’s been here the longest I guess, I appreciate it more. If this was my rookie year or second year, I wouldn’t have appreciated it as much but now we know how hard it is to get to this point to try and win it all.”