The outsider

One of our worst basketball fears on the North Coast may be slowly becoming realized: Incoming Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert isn't the Daddy Warbucks everybody thought he was.
Just when we think Cleveland may have gotten its own Mark Cuban to free-spend (or at least spend without fear) to make the Cavaliers a perennial winner, and maybe end our four-decade championship drought, we find out he might be something to be feared: a bottom-line driven outsider who doesn't realize the adversity Clevelanders have dealt with in just trying to find winning teams, let alone title contenders.
Rumors are flying that Gilbert isn't too crazy about ponying up the money to re-sign center Zydrunas Ilgauskas for another four or five years. Ilgauskas has said the Cavaliers haven't even opened contract discussions with him.
The handwriting may be on the wall for the former all-star center who has not yet turned 30. If the Cavs don't deal Ilgauskas by the trade deadline at the end of the month, or have a remarkable change of heart on a contract extension, they are probably going to let him walk in the off-season.
If Gilbert doesn't want to talk deal now, it is hard to imagine him diving into the fray over the summer, when other teams will drive Ilgauskas' asking price up.
The problem might largely be Gilbert's lack of familiarity with Cleveland and the Cavaliers. Gilbert professes to be a huge basketball fan, yet his attitude toward Ilgauskas looks like that of a guy who has overdosed on news reports about "Z"s repeated foot injuries. That, understandably, is the view from Detroit, where Gilbert lives. Nationally, Ilgauskas is known as the guy who couldn't stop breaking his feet, so naturally Gilbert will be leery of paying him big money.
But times have changed since Ilgauskas' last foot surgery in 2001. He had his feet structurally altered in that surgery, a last-ditch effort to save his career.
So far, the surgery has been a rousing success, a borderline-miracle. Not only is Ilgauskas on the floor every night, he is one of the top offensive centers in the game and hands-down the Cavaliers' second-best player.
Gilbert must sit up and realize "Z" is not just the broken-foot man. Yes, that is an indelible part of his career, but to view him only in that light is doing him a great disservice. He is now playing with virtually no fear of foot problems, and if "Z" can do that, after nearly staring the end of his career in the face, those that pay his salary should be able to as well.
Ilgauskas is important to the Cavaliers, important to the team they are trying to build around LeBron James. If there is a silver lining to his foot problems, it saved wear on the rest of his body by keeping him out of action for parts of four seasons. Ilgauskas is less likely to develop back and knee problems that hamper other big men as they inch into their 30s. "Z" has not missed a game due to injury, foot or otherwise, in four years. Tim Duncan and Shaquille O'Neal haven't done that. If that type of durability is not worthy of an extension, what is?
If Gilbert can't realize what Ilgauskas means to the Cavaliers, it is up to general manager Jim Paxson and outgoing majority owner Gordon Gund to educate him. Of course, with rumors seeping in about Gilbert wanting to bring in his own guy (namely, Bill Laimbeer) to run the Cavs, Paxson may follow Gund and Ilgauskas out the door.
If it's all true, Gilbert is playing Russian Roulette with his ability to keep LeBron in a Cleveland uniform in two years. He either has to keep LeBron happy, or win LeBron over to his way of thinking.
LeBron has a tremendous sense of loyalty to his coach and many of his teammates, chief among them the quiet yet likeable Ilgauskas. Loyalty is good in Gilbert's cutthroat world of business only when it serves you (read: makes you money). Usually, when you're a self-made millionaire, you are much more prone to do things your way because that's how you got rich in the first place.
But the caution, the warning, the red flag to Gilbert: For the first time in a long time, things are looking good for the Cavaliers. It wasn't always this good. Usually, it's been pretty bad.
If it ain't broke, Mr. Gilbert, don't fix it.