Takes one to know one: Walton has advice for Ilgauskas foot woes.(Knight Ridder Newspapers)

CLEVELAND _ Bill Walton was in Indiana preparing to broadcast a Christmas Day NBC game when he heard the news: Cavaliers center Zydrunas Ilgauskas had gone down yet again with a broken foot.

Walton never has met Ilgauskas. He's only seen him play in person a few times. But Walton feels a bond with Ilgauskas.

After all, nobody in the history of the NBA ever missed more games due to injury than Walton, whose foot problems were similar to what Ilgauskas is going through.

"I just feel terrible for Zydrunas and for everyone involved," the Hall of Fame center said in a telephone interview. "It's a devastating road that he's going down, and that he's already been a ways down. They're trying so hard in Cleveland to get things going, and they were making terrific progress. I hope he can find a cure to this problem."

In the last six years, the 7-foot-3 Ilgauskas has broken his left foot twice and his right foot twice. He's had four surgeries.

After breaking his left foot Dec. 22 at Miami, Ilgauskas is still trying to determine what treatment program he will follow, and he will not speak to the media until that decision is made. If he misses the rest of the season, it will mean Ilgauskas has sat out the bulk of five of his last six pro seasons.

In his five NBA seasons, Ilgauskas, who previously was a professional in Lithuania, only has played in 111 of 324 possible regular-season games. He's missed a greater percentage of games than Walton, who played in 468-of-1,148 games with Portland, the Clippers and Boston from 1974-88.