The REAL Arvydas Sabonis-Before Injuries 1986

[CB4GOATPF]

[COLOR="Blue"]Arvydas Sabonis-Before Injuries 1986[/COLOR]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06usV6451ik

[sacredcow]

Blazers could have won so many rings with this guy.

[magnax1]

Was that Robinson he was killing?
In his first couple seasons in the NBA he was still a top 5 or so center, and if injuries really hit him that bad, he could have been near Hakeem Level in his prime.

[CB4GOATPF]

Was that Robinson he was killing? In his first couple seasons in the NBA he was still a top 5 or so center, and if injuries really hit him that bad, he could have been near Hakeem Level in his prime.

Yup

[All Net]

He made D-rob look like a small kid

how tall was Sabonis? 7'3? the way he jumped out of the gym for his size was scary.

[kaiteng]

Sabonis, Petrovic, and Drexler would win at least 3 championships easily.

[sbw19]

[COLOR=Teal]lol that's brilliant.[/COLOR]

[CB4GOATPF]

[COLOR="DarkRed"]Non Injured Sabonis With the Drexler, Buck Williams, Kiki, Porter, Duckworth, Kersey and Petrovic Blazers

1987 Champions
1988 Champions
1989 Champions
1990 Champions
1991 Champions
1992 Champions
1993 Champions[/COLOR]

[CB4GOATPF]

He made D-rob look like a small kid

how tall was Sabonis? 7'3? the way he jumped out of the gym for his size was scary.

7`3 1/2 ft and 279 lbs (his 20s)

292 lbs (his 30s)

1992 DREAM TEAM....EXISTED...BECAUSE OF SABONIS

[Qdouble]

Sabonis was a good center, but please stop with this "coulda woulda been top 5 GOAT center" crap. It wasn't like he was 27-28 years putting up monster numbers before and then had a major injury. He was 21-22 when those injuries occurred and he wasn't even playing in a more grueling 82-game schedule league.

What is...is what is. It's like forwarding ten years from now and saying how Greg Oden would have been a top 5 GOAT center had it not been for the knee.

[CB4GOATPF]

Sabonis was a good center, but please stop with this "coulda woulda been top 5 GOAT center" crap. It wasn't like he was 27-28 years putting up monster numbers before and then had a major injury. He was 21-22 when those injuries occurred and he wasn't even playing in a more grueling 82-game schedule league.

What is...is what is. It's like forwarding ten years from now and saying how Greg Oden would have been a top 5 GOAT center had it not been for the knee.

Are u an Idiot?

What has Oden Prooved Against....Shaq, Duncan CF, Howard, Ming?

Nothing

In Those Clips The Dude Was 22 Years Old and Not Out Playing but [COLOR="Blue"]Totally Demolishing David Robinson [/COLOR]Who Was [COLOR="Red"] 8 months younger only[/COLOR]...

Robinson is easy a Top 5 Center of All Time. Impact Wise It is Shown He is.

[COLOR="DarkRed"]In that same year 1986 He Destroyed his Knee and Never Played Like the Mobile, Leaping and 279 lbs Athletic Sabonis of that 1986 Olympics. [/COLOR]

He Was [COLOR="DarkRed"]Still A Monster Till 1990[/COLOR] [COLOR="Blue"]but not even close to the 1986 Sabonis[/COLOR]...

Just Look At The Clips and Videos from 1987 how He Has a Knee Brace and is Not Even Close to As Mobile Post 1986.

[COLOR="DarkRed"]Drafted by the Blazers in 1986 and his injury ruined his Prime:[/COLOR]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxO9V...eature=related

[COLOR="darkred"]2.55 to 3.01[/COLOR]

A Non Injured Sabonis Would Have Easy Been A Top 5 Center of All Time.

http://www.nba.com/blazers/special_f...-84264-41.html

As a former stat wizard with the Blazers, I used to calculate his numbers based on if he were to play 40 minutes a game. [COLOR="Blue"]They were always somewhere around 19 points and 14 rebounds a game along with five or six assists[/COLOR]. [COLOR="Red"]The problem is he never played more than 30 minutes a game because of his legs[/COLOR]. But the truth was there. I’m sure any coach would have taken 19 points, 14 rebounds and five assists a game from their center.

Then of course, when you talk of Sabonis, you always play the what-if game. Remember, [COLOR="Blue"]the Blazers drafted this guy in 1986. Four or five years later, he was not only in his prime, he was [probably the most dominant big man in the world]," [/COLOR]. Kareem Abdul-Jabbar had retired from Los Angeles, and the Blazers team that drafted him was in the finals with the Detroit Pistons. Nothing against Kevin Duckworth, but can you imagine Sabonis teamed with Clyde, Terry, Buck and Jerome? The stories are infamous.

[COLOR="Blue"]What a lot of people didn’t know was when Sabonis did come to Portland for treatment on his legs or feet, he always found his way on the basketball court with the Rip City crew from the finals. I’ve been told by numerous people it was a thing of beauty. The outlet passes to Drexler and Kersey, the pick and rolls with Porter and Danny Young and even Danny Ainge eventually. They said he could have stepped on the court that day and they would have won three championships. He was that good. [/COLOR]

http://www.arvydassabonis.com/archiv...01/shadow.html

[COLOR="Red"]He plays in pain every day[/COLOR]," [COLOR="DarkRed"]Portland coach Mike Dunleavy [/COLOR]said.

[COLOR="darkred"]Dunleavy first spotted Sabonis during a European trip in 1983, when the coach was scouting talent in Spain. Sabonis, he said, was unbelievable in the way he could bulldoze his way through the middle and score on anybody[/COLOR].

"[COLOR="darkred"]He was one of the top centers of all time[/COLOR]," [COLOR="darkred"]Dunleavy said.[/COLOR] [COLOR="Blue"]"When you see him now, you might consider him a pretty good player. But back then, there wasn't anybody who could guard him. The players he plays against now couldn't have done anything against him back then. Not even Shaq could have guarded him."[/COLOR]

[DuMa]

[COLOR="DarkRed"]Non Injured Sabonis With the Drexler, Buck Williams, Kiki, Porter, Duckworth, Kersey and Petrovic Blazers

1987 Champions
1988 Champions
1989 Champions
1990 Champions
1991 Champions
1992 Champions
1993 Champions[/COLOR]

i doubt it. Sabas was elite but i dont think he beats any of the Bulls or Lakers teams.

[CB4GOATPF]

http://articles.latimes.com/1996-04-...rvydas-sabonis

Curtain Call - As an NBA Rookie at 31, Sabonis Shows Some of That Old Soviet Brilliance, but, Oh, What Might Have Been

[COLOR="DarkRed"]By MARK HEISLER, TIMES STAFF WRITER|April 21, 1996[/COLOR]

A nation idolized him. A beauty queen married him. An empire drafted him. Two American secretaries of state petitioned a Soviet premier on behalf of this . . . basketball player.

But in the land of the free and home of the brave, not to mention rich basketball players, Arvydas Sabonis was a rumor, shrouded in mystery, wrapped in an enigma like the Soviet Union he once represented.

By the time he arrived in Portland last fall at age 31, most of his career was behind him, not to mention his mobility. He is still so impressive that Coach P.J. Carlesimo keeps getting the same question:

[COLOR="DarkRed"]What might he have done if he'd arrived in his 20s before tearing both Achilles' tendons?[/COLOR]



[COLOR="darkred"]"People ask that a lot," Carlesimo says. "I never think about it. What he's accomplished already, not just here but throughout his career--it's scary.[/COLOR]

[COLOR="Blue"]"He's a great, great big man, but without the injury? Had he played here for a long time and not had injuries, there's absolutely no limit to how good he could have been."[/COLOR]

Put it this way: [COLOR="blue"]If Sabonis had arrived in the '80s when Clyde Drexler still glided and Blazermania still flowered, they might have won another title or two and the Lakers, Detroit Pistons and/or Chicago Bulls might have won one fewer.[/COLOR]

[COLOR="blue"]Picture a player with quickness, anticipation, leaping ability, soft hands and one of those genius basketball IQs one sees only a few times a decade: Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Michael Jordan, Chris Mullin, John Stockton.

Picture all that on a player as massive as Mark Eaton, 7 feet 3 and 292 pounds. That was Sabonis in his prime.

"A quicker Bill Walton," says Phoenix Sun assistant Donnie Nelson, who coaches Sabonis on the Lithuanian national team.[/COLOR]

"You didn't have to be a rocket scientist to know he'd play well. The guy's 7-3, he has that bulk and his passing ability. He was the second-best three-point shooter on our Lithuanian team to Rinas Kurtinaitis, who's world class.

"[COLOR="Blue"]The guys on the Dream Team told me they couldn't believe how big the guy is. You see tall guys, but you don't see guys who are that tall and that bulky or proportioned[/COLOR].

"When you've got guys who understand the game like Chris Mullin and Stockton and they see a guy who's got that kind of vision, who understands the game--guys like that like to play against each other.

"[COLOR="Blue"]Coaching him was a cakewalk. The game is so easy for him. He's so smart[/COLOR]."

[jamal99]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X12w-0Z7A8A

[CB4GOATPF]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X12w-0Z7A8A

[COLOR="Blue"]What might he have done if he'd arrived in his 20s before tearing both Achilles' tendons? (1986) [/COLOR]



This

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=06usV6451ik