Arvydas Sabonis (1964-) - Lithuanian Basketball Legend Responsible for "The Dream Team"

[DonRocks]

On 3/17/2017 at 5:25 PM, DonRocks said:

Here's an interesting debate about Nowitzki's place in the NBA pantheon (and I realize the above post is primarily about scoring). I am in agreement with both of these guys that Nowitzki is not a Top-10 player, but he's in the argument for 10-20 (again, this is all-around, and not just scoring).

He's also probably the best European player in the history of the NBA, but it's a damned shame Arvydas Sabonis didn't have a chance to prove himself, because I think Sabonis was one of the greatest basketball players to ever live, and I mean he's in the Top 10 conversation, and I don't entirely discount the possibility that he could have been #1.

I also haven't forgotten about Dražen_Petrović (who was no Nowitzki, but man his tragic story reminds me of Vitas Gerulaitis), and of course Hakeem Olajuwon is from Africa. But you want to talk about just scoring? Yes, Dirk is in the Top 10 conversation - the year Dallas beat Miami for the championship, I knew they were going to win before the series started - it was fated, and I would have bet a *lot* of money on Dallas straight-up.

I"ll probably split half my post into a Sabonis thread, but people laugh at me when I say he could pass like Bird (but not as well), shoot like Nowitzki (but not as well), and dunk like O'Neal (though not quite as well) - and he was almost 7'4". Apologies for the gladiator music, but this guy could have been mentioned alongside Chamberlain, Abdul-Jabbar, Jordan, take your pick - in fact, he was responsible for the Dream Team.

 

I think Sabonis' biggest impact on basketball is that without him, there would have been no Dream Team. There is no other individual in the entire world that you can say this about.