How good would Arvydas Sabonis have been in todays NBA?

[jinxed]

People don't understand how good Sabonis was in the NBA.

He has one of the top 20 defensive RAPM's of all-time (1996-7 season to 2014), despite playing from ages 31-38.

https://sites.google.com/site/rapmstats/97-14-defensive-rapm

From the years 97-2014 his RAPM ranked 17th among players with at least 20,000 possessions.

https://sites.google.com/site/rapmstats/97-14-rapm-2

His other stats were just as nice. If he had played enough minutes to qualify this would be his all time ranks.

career:
21.2 PER (47th)
3.8 BPM (38th)
.200 WS/48. (20th)

And all of this way after his prime, old, injured and a shell of his former self. And he was still an all-time great.

[jinxed]

The superstar centers in the golden age make him look pedestrian when you compare the highlights. I’m not buying the myth

You are aware that David Robinson is number 11 on the USA team in this highlight real? Which is only highlights from two games. David Robinson is the one getting dunked on and swatted at around 1:30 in the video.

Watch on YouTube

Also a 17 year old Sabonis outplayed a 21 year old and already two time NCAA player of the Year in Ralph Sampson

[Clyde Frazier]

The superstar centers in the golden age make him look pedestrian when you compare the highlights. I’m not buying the myth

You are aware that David Robinson is number 11 on the USA team in this highlight real? Which is only highlights from two games. David Robinson is the one getting dunked on and swatted at around 1:30 in the video.

Watch on YouTube

Also a 17 year old Sabonis outplayed a 21 year old and already two time NCAA player of the Year in Ralph Sampson

Please fix your post so it doesn't look like I wrote that

[monopoman]

Yeah, he would have been easily the greatest Euro player of all time. ****, even coming in banged up like he did he still had one hell of a career as a Blazer.

Man I would have loved to see him play with Drexler and that crew during the early 90s they could have really challenged MJ and his Bulls.

[LakerLegend]

We have no way of knowing whether he was being shot up with steroids like many other Soviet athletes of the era.

[smartyz456]

at best he would be marcin gortat

he's probably around shawn bradley or greg ostertag or brian cardinal type of impact today

[nyk97]

in his prime hes what nugget fans hope jokic will become

[badass316]

The Jokic comp is a joke. Young Sabas played Hakeem level defense. Picture a better shooting & passing Kareem. The guy had the whole package, that is how good he was.

Whoa...

[freestyler34]

The Jokic comp is a joke. Young Sabas played Hakeem level defense. Picture a better shooting & passing Kareem. The guy had the whole package, that is how good he was.

[anish23]

Easily the best Center in the league, and a top 5 player alongside the 4- LJ,KD,CURRY and HARDEN.

[badass316]

My last memory of Sabas was him getting abused by Shaq and tossed around like a rag doll.

[freestyler34]

The Jokic comp is a joke. Young Sabas played Hakeem level defense. Picture a better shooting & passing Kareem. The guy had the whole package, that is how good he was.

Moral of the thread is Sabonis was way better at offense than one of the player whos in GOAT discussing, Top 3 player ever and scored most points in the NBA, Also had a defence like Hakeem who was 2x Defensive player of the year,5xNBA All defensive first team, the man Sabonis also was breathing fire and farting lightnings .

[ProfessorJM]

I think if he was born in today's generation and had the right system and coaching, he's to me a perennial All-Star. I think his size and skills would translate pretty well to today's game. Only real concern I would guess is maybe quickness on the pick and roll but he's definitely not slow pre-injury, just maybe not elite speed for a C. Beyond estimating a perennial All-Star, it is really hard to say, but even his post-injury NBA career was very good, and he was clearly not the same player in the NBA that he was before he arrived there. I think Jokic is a really skilled player right now, but Sabonis having a lot of great skills with that huge size is helpful too.

[packforfreedom]

I'd question his foot speed to defend in switches

[UcanUwill]

In his rookie season he averaged 14.5ppg 8.1rpg 1.1apg 1.1bpg 0.9spg .545%fg .617%ts 24.7per 5.6bpm in 23.8mpg

Per 36 that would be: 22.0ppg 12.2rpg 2.7apg 1.6bpg 1.3spg

This was on two busted up legs and not even half the athlete he was before injuries.

He was very good in play offs that year as rookie if i remember correctly. Basically toe toe with Karl Malone in that series, if someone could find footage of that Portland-Jazz series, I think it would open eyes of some of Sabonis doubters who says hes nothing special.

That said, I have a big argument that supports idea that pre NBA sabonis was overrated, and I encourage all his fanboys to counter me. Start with the fact he was definition of early bloomer, man was born to play baskrtball and his feel for the game was insane from very young age. At age 18 he was already biggest star of soviet basketball. But he suffered serious injuries at very young age, and the young fast Sabonis was very short lived. He was still the most dominant European player of the day.
But this is my argument. When Sabonis retired from the NBA, he returned to his home team Zalgiris Kaunas and played one season in the Euroleague. And guess what, he put up one of the most dominant individual seasons in Euroleague history. And this was post NBA Sabonis, man who was a good NBA player, but not really a big star. So that kinda diminishes his pre NBA Euro dominance, doesn't it, maybe he always was this Sabonis that we all saw in Portland, but he was just so suited to play Euro scrubs and FIBA basketball, that he looked like he would be instant NBA superstar at one point, but he probably never would have been. I hope you follow my point here.
i mean I understand younger Sabonis was healthier, not a handicap man like he was in the NBA, he suffered ''career ending'' injury before 1995, and doctors said that he would never play again, so just a fact he managed to join NBA and be relevant past that point speaks volumes of his sheer skills. But doctors were obviously wrong, he was much slower, but his game was still truthful to his prime i feel.

[LuDux1]

Did doctors really said that? Certainly not Blazers doctors in 1988 https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/sports/1988/06/09/trail-blazing-is-no-cinch-for-sabonis/5c9aa579-8645-4344-a8e8-2e31619fc2d3/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.4f7cff95cf5b

[NPZ]

He had quite a bit of refined talent, especially passing and shooting. However, the tonnage and age and beaten up knees is the version that the NBA witnessed. He was heavy enough to single Shaq, even though Shaq made him cry once (literally). He was sitting there crying on Porty's bench after a game full of the 1997/98 era Shaq beatdown that was no shame in getting. Better centers than Sabonis got Shaq Attaq'd. Sabonis was easily 315 lbs. The younger, less debilitated version would've been something. I read two posts saying he's Euro hyperbole, but I personally think he was less of a case than Drazen Petrovic. His death was tragically young, but I've seen Croatian fans saying without a hint of exaggeration that Drazen and Jordan were the two best players ever. I sh you not. BSPN even perpetuated the falsehood that Drazen once scored 40 on Jordan. They just accepted that without checking bballref. As if we know so little about Mike to believe that ANY Euro player would ever be athletic enough to dump 40 on him.

[Mirotic12]

Sabonis averaged 19 and 12 in the EuroLeague in 6 seasons...was once voted the best player, and once won the EuroLeague championship. This included the so-called mythical unicorn known as "Sabonis before the injuries". And the EuroLeague in that time was far, far worse than it is now, and in that time it had hugely inflated stats also (as compared to today, sort of like 60's NBA).

He was definitely a great player, was one of the best European players ever, and was probably the best European center ever (although that is actually quite debatable between him and Kresimir Cosic).....but the way some people talk about him, you would think he was averaging 50 and 30......

He's basically Europe's version of Wilt Chamberlain, not in play style or numbers, but in the amount of ridiculous hyperbole and enormous myths that exist about him. Yes, he was definitely better than Jokic or Marc Gasol...but he was not better than Kareem of Hakeem - get real.

He's turned into this mythical figure of European basketball, like Wilt has for American basketball. Great players, but yet 90% of the things said about them being pure hyperbole, or even outright made up.

[jinxed]

You are aware that David Robinson is number 11 on the USA team in this highlight real? Which is only highlights from two games. David Robinson is the one getting dunked on and swatted at around 1:30 in the video.

Watch on YouTube

Also a 17 year old Sabonis outplayed a 21 year old and already two time NCAA player of the Year in Ralph Sampson

Please fix your post so it doesn't look like I wrote that

Fixed. My apologies, don't know how that happened!