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" November 18, 2010 Nice time last night at American Airlines Arena. Plenty of good seats available \u2014 I paid face value to sit in the &amp;quot;Dewars Club&amp;quot; section directly across the court from the Heat bench, five rows off the floor, but despite the &amp;quot;you are no longer welcome at our building&amp;quot; note from the Heat&amp;#039;s media-relations guy, everyone was friendly as could be. I had one moment of trepidation \u2014 I was sitting near a member of LeBron&amp;#039;s inner circle, Randy Mims, a guy I saw plenty of last season in Cleveland; the Cavs had hired Mims as mascot/handshake impresario to keep the Whore of Akron well-pleased. He looked at me at one point and I thought he&amp;#039;d made me, until I realized that all three-hundred-pound, white-bearded Jews look alike. The game? Serena was there. Adrienne Williams, the future Mrs. Bosh, was there. The Whore of Akron was there. Little Stevie Nash was there. And I was there. *** Zydrunas Ilgauskas also was there. You can&amp;#039;t like sports and not love Z. You can&amp;#039;t be from Cleveland and not love him. The Cavs drafted him in 1996, a seven-foot-three Lithuanian with a sweet jumpshot and a puss straight outta Pixar. The bones in both feet started cracking early in his NBA career; he was sidelined for three entire seasons. Z had a $70 million contract \u2014 he could&amp;#039;ve limped away and retired a wealthy young man.  But Z loved the game and Cleveland, too \u2014 not so different a town from Kaunas, his home \u2014 and he&amp;#039;s a man of dignity, honor, and integrity; &amp;quot;loyalty&amp;quot; is more than a tattooed lie to Ilgauskas. He suffered through multiple surgeries on each foot, rehabbed even after everyone had written him off, and finished his career in Cleveland as the most beloved of Cavs. I got to know him a little bit last year, and almost cried when I saw him down here on Media Day in a Heat uniform. LeBron called him and asked him to join up with the Heat and get the ring they&amp;#039;d never won in Cleveland, and Z packed up \u2014 he and his wife have two young sons \u2014 and signed with the Heat as a free agent for chump change.  Z also wrote an &amp;quot;open letter&amp;quot; to the Cavs and to Cleveland, and paid to have it published in the Plain Dealer. It&amp;#039;s a beautiful read, and it meant the world to the city and to Cavs fans. December 2 is just around the corner, the night when the Whore of Akron returns to play against the Cavaliers. Serena and the future Mrs. Bosh won&amp;#039;t be there, and something tells me that somehow \u2014 could be a tweaked hamstring, or a nagging ankle sprain, or a recurrence of last May&amp;#039;s phony elbow injury \u2014 King James might not show up, either. But Z will be there \u2014 and the fans will welcome him with open arms and hearts. --Click here to follow the @Scott_Raab journey on Twitter, and stay tuned for more reports all week... "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/sports/a8959/zydrunas-ilgauskas-heat-111810/>