101 Greats of European Basketball

The Lithuanian Tsar
At the 1983 EuroBasket in Nantes,
France, I came across Arvydas Sabonis
in a nearby mall. At that time, he was
the young center of the USSR team. It
was his second competition at a senior
level because, with his enormous talent,
he basically skipped the junior period in his career.
After having played at the FIBA European Championship
for Cadets in 1981 in Greece, where the USSR
was crowned champion behind his 17 points per game,
Sabonis was already a great talent. One year later, while
his generational peers – Sarunas Marciulionis, Valery
Tikhonenko, Jose Biriukov, Igors Miglinieks and others
– played in the FIBA European Championship for Junior
Men, Sabonis was at the World Cup 1982 in Colombia with
the seniors, alongside Sergei Tarakanov, Valdis Valters,
Vladimir Tkachenko, Anatoly Myshkin, Aleksandar Belosteny,
Sergejus Jovaisa and Valdemaras Chomicius.
Sabonis was less than 18 years old at the time, having
been born on December 19, 1964, in Kaunas, Lithuania.
The USSR became world champion by beating the USA
95-94 with Sabonis going scoreless, even though his
talent had helped his team reach the title game. For instance,
he scored 28 points against the hosts, Colombia.
Let me go back to my encounter with Sabonis. We
had a cup of coffee, he was very kind. We talked only a little,
but enough for me to put together a short interview
with the future superstar of world basketball. From our
conversation, I only remember a single sentence: “I will
never play for CSKA Moscow.” When I was back home,
looking through the pages of the Borba newspaper, of
which I was sports chief then, I could not find the interview
with Sabonis. When I asked my co-workers what
had happened, they told me: “We didn’t have much
space those days, and since he is an unknown player...”
Shortly thereafter, interviews with Sabonis were
world exclusives. My newspaper peers had made the
typical mistake of a coach who fires a young player
from a club because he has “no talent” – and then he
becomes a superstar. Years later, fortunately, I had the
chance to know Arvydas a little better, to make several
interviews with him and to talk several more times in a
casual way. Most of all, though, I enjoyed his game.
Pure talent
Arvydas Sabonis was one of a kind. In my almost 50
years following basketball, I have never seen a player
like him. There were taller players, more celebrated
players, but never did someone with his height (2.20
meters) have that much talent. I couldn’t even mention
what aspect of the game was his strongest point: rebounds,
shooting, assists, court vision, leadership. He
was a natural-born talent, a giant born to play basketball
and do big things in this sport.
If I had to compare Sabonis to someone I can only
think about Kresimir Cosic, the great Croatian center
of Zadar and the Yugoslav national team. Even though
both played center, they didn’t look like each other
physically, but their games had many similar attributes.
Cosic was a visionary, the first big man to ever play
at all positions. He had great court vision, went to the
perimeter to deliver assists like a playmaker, and mainly
understood basketball like nobody else. His main
weapon was his basketball IQ. Sabonis was like his
pupil, but with even a few more qualities in him: he was
10 centimeters taller, had a stronger body and a better
101 greats of european basketball
Arvydas Sabonis
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