MINNEAPOLIS -- Zydrunas Ilgauskas is lucky he survived his workout with the Minnesota Timberwolves in 1995.
It wasn't the broken foot that caused him to postpone his entry into the NBA draft for one year. It was an accident during his workout for the Wolves at their practice court in Target Center, where a cameraman was filming the workout from a perch above the floor.
"The cameraman dropped a tripod and missed Zydrunas by six inches," recalled Kevin McHale, then the Wolves' vice president of basketball operations and now their head coach. "That would have killed him. That would have been worse than the broken foot."
Ilgauskas laughed at the memory.
"It was half an inch," he said. "It landed on the floor between my feet and took out a piece of the court. It was almost the Z Center instead of the Target Center."
Back in 1995, the Wolves thought they had a sleeper in Ilgauskas. A European scout recommended him to McHale.
"The film on the guy was like something from behind the Iron Curtain," McHale recalled. "It was all grainy. We were watching and it was like, 'OK, which one of those dudes is he?' Needless to say, when you're watching teams from the area where he's from, they're all a bunch of tall white guys. So you're looking at the film, checking for [jersey] numbers."
"When we saw him, he was really skinny. But he had a nice soft touch."
The Wolves brought Ilgauskas in for a workout and he impressed McHale so much that he planned on taking him in the second round.
"He worked out for two days, then he said my foot hurts," McHale said. "We thought we'd have him see the doctor and he had a broken foot. I was like, 'That's a pretty tough dude.'
"We thought we had him stashed away. Then he broke his foot and came out of the draft. The next year he played better, and everybody found out about him."
The Cavs took him with the 20th pick in the 1996 draft. But McHale is still an admirer.
"I'm a big fan of Zydrunas," McHale said. "He's a great guy. I knew him so long ago he used to have hair."
Big Al: Mike Brown is a big fan of the Minnesota's Al Jefferson.
"Al is one of the best low-post players in the league," Brown said. "He's a guy you have to pay a lot of attention to. He's a guy who's going to go get a double-double every night. You just hope you can make him work for his shots, work for his points, not let him get too many offensive rebounds and try to contain everybody else. He's a guy who can win a game by himself."
Welcome back: Wally Szczerbiak always enjoys his visits to Minnesota, where he spent the first six years of his career after McHale made him a No. 1 draft choice in 1999.
"I wish him nothing but the best," Szczerbiak said of McHale. "I had a lot of fun playing for Minnesota. We had great runs there. We made the playoffs just about every year I was there. Little do people remember we lost in the first round most of the time, and we were getting crucified for that. So it was tough. But they're rebuilding.
"They're going to get back to the promised land some time. They have too good of management and too good of fans. I wish them the best."
The last word: From McHale, who has taken over as coach for the second time -- "This job is like dog years. I'm 50, but I'm 350."
