The Greatest Center You’ve Never Seen

Sep 30, 1988; Seoul, SOUTH KOREA; FILE PHOTO; (left to right) Igors Miglinieks, Valery Tikhonenko, Rimas Kurtinaitis, Arvydas Sabonis, Viktor Pankrashkin and Valdemaras Chomicius of the Soviet Union wave to the crowd after receiving their medals for winning the men's basketball tournament at the 1988 Seoul Olympic Games at Jamsil Gymnasium. Mandatory Credit: George Long-USA TODAY NETWORK

When the best big men in basketball history are discussed, people always say the same basic names: Wilt Chamberlain, Bill Russell, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Hakeem Olajuwon, Shaquille O’Neal, Tim Duncan, David Robinson, and Bill Walton.

Arvydas Sabonis always gets overlooked.

There are valid reasons for that. First, a Lithuanian by birth, he grew up a Soviet citizen and was not allowed to move to the NBA during his prime, and chose to play overseas for a time after the USSR fell.

And don’t forget that he competed for the Soviet Union, and during those years, the Americans saw everyone in the USSR as Russian, and, therefore, suspect.

So he was a Russkie, as people might have called him then, and was mostly off the radar as a young player, and then suffered a series of injuries, including a torn Achilles, when that was much more devastating than it is today.

Nonetheless, when you look at this clip, and how easily he competed against the likes of David Robinson and Ralph Sampson, and what a shockingly well-rounded game he had, it’s difficult not to think of him as one of the all-time greats.

He was very nearly a 7-3 version of Larry Bird. In his prime, and with top-flight medical care, Sabonis could have competed against anyone on the list of greats above. He was a phenomenal talent.

||