Cavs: Zydrunas Ilgauskas would seem to be obvious ‘Gund Arena Era’ choice

With fan voting for the bobblehead for the “Gund Arena Era” next up, former Cleveland Cavaliers big Zydrunas Ilgauskas seems to be the obvious choice.

The Cleveland Cavaliers are going into their 50th season in 2019-20, and this season appears to be filled with giveaways to commemorate that for what is a very loyal fan base.

One of the giveaways are bobbleheads highlighting each era of the team, and that is a bobblehead for a player of those eras, and these are picked from fan voting.

The first bobblehead (per the Cavaliers), which was for the “The Early Years,” dating from the team’s founding in 1970 through 1983, was the man many still refer to as “Mr. Cavalier,” in Austin Carr, who is one of the team’s play-by-play announcers in their Fox Sports Ohio broadcasts now, too.

Carr averaged 16.2 points per game for the Cleveland Cavaliers in nine seasons with them, and per the team, is fourth all-time in scoring and second all-time in field goals made.

The next bobblehead for the “Richfield Coliseum Era” dating from 1983-93 (again these are from fan voting) was for Mark Price, who (per the team) ranked first in free throw percentage among qualified players, and “second in three-point field goals made and attempted, assists and steals.”

He was a four-time All-Star for Cleveland, too.

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So next up in the commemorative bobblehead voting is the “Gund Arena Era,” and to me, that’s a pretty obvious choice in being Zydrunas Ilgauskas.

He played 12 seasons for the Cavaliers (out of his 13 NBA seasons played) and had averages of 13.8 points on 53.5% true shooting, to go with having 7.7 rebounds and 1.6 blocks per game (per Basketball Reference).

While I was a big fan of other players when I was younger in Ricky Davis, who had his head-scratching moments but was a really fun fill-it-up scorer to watch, along with Lamond Murray (a reliable swingman) and Wesley Person (a quality three-point marksman), “Big Z” is the choice that I would assume fans of the Cleveland Cavaliers will ultimately go with.

Ilgauskas, even with reported foot surgeries early in his career likely hampering him throughout his NBA tenure, was very consistent when it comes to production when he was able to go.

Often being a reliable kick-out target for players such as Brevin Knight and Andre Miller early on, and of course, LeBron James, when Z was able to go more consistently, the 7-foot-3 Ilgauskas had nice touch in the mid-range, and was a good defender on the interior that altered a fair share of shots throughout his day.

Along with that, fans clearly will always have great appreciation for Z, for him seemingly being a model teammate, and him being that reliable center for LeBron early on was something I’ll always be grateful for when it comes to Ilgauskas.

So taking that sort of thing into account, in addition to Z being a two-time All-Star and Cleveland’s all-time leader in blocks, and I don’t see fans not voting him that era’s bobblehead.

Other notable players for the Gund Arena Era bobblehead include the aforementioned Davis, Person, Knight and Miller, along with Tyrone Hill, one of the team’s best point guards in franchise history, in Terrell Brandon, Shawn Kemp, former head coach Mike Fratello, Chris Mills, Bob Sura and Bobby Phills.

You can vote for the Gund Arena Era bobblehead here through August 27, and again, courtesy of the Cleveland Cavaliers.