CLEVELAND – Former Cavaliers center, Lithuanian Zydrunas Ilgauskas, who played 771 NBA games with the franchise over 12 seasons, was given the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Cleveland Sports Awards on Wednesday in Cleveland.

Accepting the award, Ilgauskas said it was “very humbling” and joked about getting such an award at age 42 but added “better early than never.”

At the event, Ilgauskas was also presented with a Lithuanian tree cake (sakotis) by Cleveland Lithuanian Club President Ruta Degutis and Cleveland Lithuanian radio show host Augis Dicevicius.

LeBron James comments about Zydrunas Ilgauskas:

“Multi-talented guy but an even greater person to be around every day” 

“He came to work every day, showed up every day and he gave everything he could to this franchise.”

“First, you talk about adversity and what he had to go through when he started his NBA career with the foot injuries he continued to go through, the foot surgeries he had to go through being that size and at some point thinking he’d never be able to play a game and to see him getting all the way back to him becoming and All-Star while I was here being the impact player that he was”

“We had a heck of a chemistry with our pick and pop. And you talk about seven-footer’s shooting threes – you talk about that now with guys like Porzingis and all those guys – Z was doing it back when we played. He started to step out of his range too. I remember one of them – he hit a big three at Sacramento from the right corner that sealed the game for us.”

LeBron James played 7 seasons with Zydrunas Ilgauskas

Zydrunas Ilgauskas receiving the Lifetime Achievement Award at the Cleveland Sports Awards

LTnews