The Big Z

I was watching a little of the NBA playoffs the other night, and I came across the Cleveland Cavaliers/Washington Wizards match up. I was reminded of the time I happened to run into Zydrunas Ilgauskas, the Cleveland Cavaliers' 7'4" center.

The Wolves were playing the Cavaliers, and there promised to be a big crowd because LeBron James would be in town. Sadly, Minnesota fans will show up to watch other players, but not their own. Because there would be a large crowd in attendance, I had been hired to throw knives during a timeout in the second quarter. I would be attempting to pop a balloon between a man's legs.

During shoot-around before the game, I was on the court with the Wolves' Game Operations crew. We were planning how to get the target board and protective floor covering on and off the court quickly and safely. Meanwhile, LeBron and Zydrunas (I will assume we are now on a first name basis, even though neither of them are even aware of my existence) were warming up behind me. I was taking some practice throws into the target board as the Game Ops crew stood by and watched.

Now I've been throwing knives for awhile, and it never ceases to amaze me that no one ever believes I'm actually throwing knives. In this case, the crew had actually carried the target board out for me. They had watched me assemble it from lumber. They stood mere feet away and watched as I hurled knives into it. When the knives hit, the tips actually came out the back side because we were using a thinner board for easier portability. Nevertheless, several of them asked me, "So how does this really work?"

What do they think? That the knives are remote controlled? Perhaps they are satellite guided? They're holograms? Magnets in the board attract them but somehow don't affect any of the other metal in the area? Even if any one of these things were possible, how could I possibly afford it?

At any rate, I finished practicing and they were discussing logistics when a basketball came rolling towards me. I bent down and picked it up, then stood to see who was coming to retrieve it. It was all eighty-eight inches of Zydrunas Ilgauskas. I tossed him the ball, and he said, "Thanks."

However, it should be noted that while his lips were moving, it may have been God speaking through him, as the voice was so deep it made Barry White sound like Aaron Neville. It was like I had played the first three notes of the Close Encounters of the Third Kind theme on my Casio keyboard from Radio Shack, and the mothership blasted back the last two with testosterone-enriched, alien, subwoofer technology. If Jeff Goldblum had been looking at a glass of water a hundred yards away, he would have freaked. I'm fairly sure Zydrunas' voice was so low, it made me sterile.

At any rate, I popped a balloon between a man's legs with twelve ounces of sharpened steel from about ten feet away, and 16,000 Minnesota fans golf-clapped me. I love this game.