Sabonis Soars, Even At Half Speed

As the NBA season starts winding down, one of the fascinating players is a rookie, the oldest rookie by far, the rookie whose availability at this point was questionable because of assorted ailments that began accumulating when the others in his rookie class were in grade school. Indeed, 31-year-old Arvydas Sabonis of the Portland Trail Blazers has excited basketball insiders for close to half his life and continues to do so, even at about half speed.

“He’s like an aging pitcher who’s found other ways of winning,” said Bullets general manager John Nash.

At a burly 7-foot-3, the fellow teammates and friends call “Sabas” has the instincts and passing skills of a point guard and a smooth outside shot in addition to being a rebounding force inside.

Sabonis’ talent was obvious to international observers at age 15, when he made the Lithuanian junior team in the former Soviet Union.

In the fall of 1982, when he was 17, Sabonis was a starter on the elite Soviet national team whose tour of the United States included games against a Virginia team that featured 7-4 Ralph Sampson in his collegiate prime and an Indiana team that won 24 games and the Big Ten championship. Nearly everyone who saw Sabonis was astonished.

“I thought he was as good a prospect as I’d ever seen,” said Indiana coach Bob Knight, whose team split with the Soviets.”

Sabonis scored 21 points on 16 shots from the field and had 14 rebounds and three assists against Virginia. That was the Virginia team that finished 29-5 and lost to eventual champion North Carolina State in the NCAA tournament’s round of 16. Against the Soviets, the Cavaliers got 13 points and 25 rebounds from Sampson and needed two overtimes to escape with a 94-87 victory.

A combination of his contract ending with Real Madrid of Spain and seeing other European and Lithuanian teammates fare so well helped Sabonis decide to take on his ultimate challenge: the NBA. He signed a five-year contract estimated at $12 million and lives with his wife and two boys in a $780,000 house near Portland.

“If I don’t play now, last chance,” he said.