NBA Legends Explain Why Arvydas Sabonis Could Have Been The Goat 

In 1988 Olympics, in Seoul, Sabonis led the USSR team to gold medal, past David Robinson, Cliff Robinson. Made them look like kids.

He was the reason the Dream Team was made.

He was the Jokic of his time.

1985 XIII Summer Universiade　miraculous gold medal　USA VS USSR　Arvydas Romas Sabonis ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-PHoxK3YB0eU.html

way more athletic than jokic would ever be@@edlawn5481

And also hit free throws...

Shaq isn’t the best example lol. He was an average at defense for a center

If Shaq faces Sabonis during Sabonis prime years, Shaq would not stand a chance. When he faced him in Portland, Sabonis couldn’t jump 1 inch at that point. And even then, he still competed against a prime Shaq.

@@ekirakosyan Portland got robbed

He also had problems with big country Bryant Reeves.

Yup.

and way bigger😂

@@loafnjug2185 in his prime he was fit, more like Shaq in his LSU or early Orlando days

How was he Jokic in steroids when Jokic is 5x better player then him explain lol Sabonis didn't have more then 3 assists in any NBA season

@@SteveFox369smh we’re talking about what could’ve been.

The Trailblazers would have had a dynasty if Sabonis had been allowed to play in the NBA earlier . Imagine that team Terry Porter , Clyde Drexler , Jerome Kersey , etc. and that European player they drafted a year later , some guard from Cibona Zagreb 😉 !

@@charliedontsurf9155 RIP

@@oleyullahhe didnt die lil bro

Real ball fan lol who is Cibona?

@@45pounder13 Cibona is a team from Zagreb, Yugoslavia, whose leader was Drazen Petrovic before he entered the NBA.

He wasn’t allowed to play over here that’s why Portland got screwed. I mean we got to see a little bit of him and it’s a bummer because he was the best. I thought when he was on our team man I wish we had them 10 years earlier, when we were supposed to, but they were jealous of the Americans as usual we’re just trying to have fun and everybody so serious in the world lol

@Gary Monaghan maybe some Americans were jealous of Sabonis for just how good he was it might have made the league more difficult for specific players that Nike or corporations like that would not want to see happen

@@anticorporatists9959 well the Americans in Portland we all loved him. We loved watching him play so I don’t know about anybody else and that happens to be where Nike is in Beaverton Oregon so I don’t know anything about that. I just know we couldn’t wait for him to come over, and we kind of felt cheated and his country didn’t wanna let him come over here anyway that’s why a lot of people defected

@@anticorporatists9959 that’s false 😂😂

It’s all Russia fault

Better skilled than Olajuwon?!.. Are you drunk?..

@@jacobjones5269 I literally did not say that, I said fundamentally sound and creative... The Dream is my personal favorite center of all time. Sabonis was at no point the dominant defender or athlete that Hakim was, but offensively Sabonis in his prime was better and more athletic than Jokic.

@@laruncetaylor6461 He could play, no doubt.. But the legend grows, so to speak.. I literally watched Olajuwon pour in 20 in the 4th period, while turning the other team into 5 jump shooters!.. And I’ve never ANYONE else do that..

@@jacobjones5269 again... I'm not discounting anything you're saying, and I'll repeat that Hakim is my personal favorite and in my opinion the best all around ceneter who's ever played... but the video was about Arvydas, so I was just talking about the subject of the video.

Not more skilled than Dream, not more fundamental than Jokic. That said, he really was a beast on defense before the knees went. That's the part of his game from the European days that Americans really missed out on. He was actually a lot like Olajuwon and Robinson defensively, strange as it may sound to those who only saw him in the US.

I remember that match, bro.

dirk could never play defense like him, and was very limited skillwise in comparison.

You mean 'reminded you of Eaton' only of his height right ? I cant recall Eaton making a skilled bounce pass and never in a million years hit a trey.....

Jazz fans are delusional due to Mormonism… big mark could block shots and that’s it! Sabonis on the other hand was a bigger Jokic with better touch.

@@LamaniteLando Easy on the hate speech. Bullying is never acceptable, not even on RU-vid.

@@LamaniteLando Anya had me until you said better touch. You should watch Jokic a little more, dude has the best touch in the league, right or left, and it’s not even close.

@@robshelden4670 that was a way of paying respect to Sabonis, Sherlock. I was disrespecting a goof that said Mark Eaton was a skilled big man… and Mormons, and now your dumb A too.

The problem is, and even Petrovic admitted to such, was that Petro was not going to start over Clyde Drexler. Petrovic was in a tough situation in Portland because of that and had to be traded to reach that potential.

@@steviem5279 I‘n not talking about starting. Just talking minutes here. From todays and european perspective Adelmann was a joke back then.

He played against young Sabonis three times. In 1986 World Cup Final (win), in 1988 Olympic Games semi-final (loss) and in 1992 Olympic Games semi-final (win). They also met at 1996 Olympic Games but weren't on the court at the same time.

@@andrzejzborowski4920 I've talked with David a few times about Sabonis and he went on and on about his skills and - back then - athleticism and how he would have dominated had he gone into the NBA back then.

There is a Lithuanian documentary about Sabonis - "Sabonis 11" and there is a lengthy speech by Robinson and Hakeem Olajuwon also.

@@solotenoras I used to cover the NBA for a newspaper based in Houston, so I discussed Sabonis with Olajuwon, too. Hakeem really respected Sabonis, talking about how he used skill rather than brute force to get things done on the court.

Sabonis destroyed David Robinson in their primes!

Better than Jokic ?

@Lincoln Hirschi That's true. The only chance viewers had to witness Sabonis was through European or other international tournaments, that were broadcast in their country (which largely depended on which of their country's teams were participating and thus whether any were facing Sabonis' team) or from sports reporters that had, generally, first hand experience and thus were quick to pick him out of the crowd. But there was no European basketball fan that was not aware of Sabonis, or more specifically, that he was in the top 5 European players. Whether - or how often - they had witnessed him, that's a different matter.

Ahh you forget. Petrovic. The GOAT held MJ down a lil sumtin sumtin.

@@mmsm6370 No-one forgets Petrovic. We are talking different decade here. Petrovic was in his prime when entering NBA so his case is not comparable - some aspects of his career have parallels with Sabonis' but on the whole their paths, while similar on the surface are fundamentally different. You could argue Kukoc and Petrovic had quite similar paths in the NBA but either of them and Sabonis, no.

The Biggest what if is Bill Walton before injuries.

@@daddyfuse50 There's probably many big what ifs - I probably need to check out Bill Walton. I guess one should also always bear in mind that how great a player was/could have been and how/if he was used in his team(s) are two distinct matters.

So true Baloo. Sometimes the pioneers pave the way for others but seem to get overlooked in the grand scheme of things. Although Smits was certainly a name.

@@roderickcampbell2105 Smits and Davis PROBLEMS !

Walton is not in Sabonis league

@@joweydelanota7421 he could be. That man win 6th man of the year with messed up knee as a center.

@@joweydelanota7421 Prime Walton is absolutely in that league, and pre-dates Sabonis by a decade

@@Barnabus007 Bill Walton was never the player Sabonis was. In Walton's own words: "You might as well just rewrite the rules of basketball after watching him play in the first half. He could do everything. He had the skills of Larry Bird and Pete Maravich. He had the athleticism of Kareem [Abdul-Jabbar], and he could shoot the 3-point shot. He could pass, run the floor, dribble. We should have carried out a plan in the early 1980s to kidnap him and bring him back right then." Walton played unselfishly being unselfish doesn't make you elite in the areas Sabonis was light years better than Walton. Prime Sabonis would have been a nightmare matchup for prime Walton that has great Sabonis was before he fucked his Achilles 3x and his knees no longer allowed him to be mobile.

@@joweydelanota7421 I respectfully disagree with you. I don't think anything you are saying is necessarily wrong and I don't want to put words in your mouth. The fact Walton praised Sabonis does prove anything, but I do get the praise. I love Sabonis. It is important to remember 1st off Walton is like 10-12 years older than Sabonis and possibly influenced his play. The difference in training methods, nutrition, and equipment had progressed in the decade or so between the two. It is also important to note that by the time Walton had (arguably) his best two seasons he had already had a bunch of injuries, and his athleticism was already compromised to the point he was neve close to the same. Sabonis did shoot 3's unlike Walton, but again, it was already becoming a different game. I would probably pick prime Sabonis over prime Walton, but it isn't a landslide. I'm not saying YOU said this or dispute it, but the major flaw to the players from the past being able to compete with players that came years later is they seem to forget the concept that all the "older" players, if they came to the present, would have better accommodations, nutrition, training methods , the benefit of learning from the past, less intense schedules, more offensive friendly rules, etc. Sorry for the rant lol...I love Sabonis, but I think people forget or don't know how great Walton was because of how short his peak was..in the end it is a shame neither got to play at least a few more somewhat healthy seasons.

Blazers made two finals appearances...Could you imagine what could have happened with this guy in his prime?

What would the other candidates be? Dell / Stephen shouldn't be overlooked.

yeah, the Snapper.. I miss him

Agreed Marcel. I haven't seen a "story" that I did not love. Especially on players that don't get too much attention.

not injuries fault, just ussr health system that ruined him.

@@AntanPavarden NO, achilles inujries up to this day are risky, and take a long time to heal from. He fell from the stairs the first time, 3 achilles injuries are devastating, its a miracle he still played.

@@AntanPavarden he had big injuries since he was 21.... You can't really predict an acl tear... After that one it may be the poor management and nurturing of the injuries....

@@smokescreenOG no? inappropriate treatment its not factor?

@@Shiljamannn from start it was poor management and nurtuning..

Ever heard of Divac?

All of those players walked so Luka could run

No. Joker & Luka are what Arvydas Sabonis was in the 80’s and 90’s… PERIOD.💯 Dirk too.

@@jasonpeterson8 Jokic is astronomicaly better

@@milosjovicevic6083 At drinking liters of cola.

Don’t forget Vlade Divac, especially when he was playing with Magic Johnson in the early 90s

that and he said himself that he didn't have an offer from the blazers pretty much untill he got a contract in 1995. theoretically he could of joined in 1989, along with players like divac, marciulionis and volkov.

domantas was born in portland, during playoffs