Legend at Large

He is a figure from a reel of grainy documentary 
footage spliced into a modern highlight tape. While other players 
gyrate and jam around him, Trail Blazers center Arvydas Sabonis 
lumbers down the floor to unleash a classic hook shot or a 
feathery finger roll. At those moments he seems to be 
superimposed on the game, as if by some technological trick, like 
Fred Astaire dancing with a vacuum cleaner in that commercial.

The 7'3", 292-pound Sabonis seems even more anachronistic when he 
delivers his pinpoint assists to reckless young talents such as 
Isaiah Rider and Rasheed Wallace, who don't appreciate that they 
have as their teammate one of the most gifted players in history. 
"Arvydas and [Bill] Walton are the two best passing big men ever," 
says Portland coach Mike Dunleavy. "No one else is close." 

Despite his ailing knees and back and the chronic pain in his right 
heel, Sabonis, 33, is enjoying the best stretch of his three-year 
NBA career. At week's end he had achieved double-doubles in seven 
of his last 10 games, raising his averages for the season to 16.4 
points and 10.2 boards in 32.4 minutes a night (up from 25.5 in 
1996-97). He had hit 81.6% of his free throws, connected on 26.9% 
of his three-pointers and provided at least one moment of delicious 
creativity each night that sent fans rocketing out of their seats. 
Against the Knicks on March 9 at Madison Square Garden, his 
breathtaking move was a no-look behind-the-head lob to the startled 
19-year-old Jermaine O'Neal, who would have had an easy layup if he
hadn't dropped the pass. 

Sabonis has grown accustomed to such misplays, just as he has come 
to expect one of the Blazers' upstarts to wave him off when he is 
entrenched in the post, despite the advantages in size, skill and 
savvy he usually has there. In a March 17 game against the 
Cavaliers, Sabonis uncharacteristically barked at his teammates 
for not feeding him the ball. Afterward Rider haughtily said, 
"He gets enough touches." 

Portland's new point guard, Damon Stoudamire, disagrees. "We 
should utilize him on every play," he says of Sabonis. "The guy 
is an unbelievable weapon." 

Sabonis developed his no-look passes and his shooting touch on the 
courts of Kaunas, Lithuania. He loved to play guard, but when he 
was nine years old—and almost 6 feet tall—his coach sent him down 
to the blocks. "The reason I love to pass," he says, "is I know the 
feeling of waiting and waiting for the ball and no one giving it 
to you." 

The Blazers drafted Sabonis in 1986, but nine years later, when 
he finally went to Portland, the nucleus of the team with which he 
was supposed to win a title—Clyde Drexler, Jerome Kersey and Terry 
Porter—was gone. In its place have come a succession of youngsters 
whose up-and-down performances have disappointed Sabonis. "I think, 
sometimes, when these young players win the money, they have what 
they need, so they no longer play like they could," he says. "I've 
always loved to play, whether I was getting a lot of money or not." 

Sabonis will exercise the escape clause in his contract this summer 
and become a free agent. Portland is expected to double his $3.1 
million salary, and he would like to play there for three more years. 
Yet the pain in his heel is constant, and it will one day force him to 
call it quits. "When I see the ball in the air," Sabonis says, 
"sometimes in my mind I think I can still jump up and grab it." 






Issue date: March 30, 1998 by by Jackie MacMullan of Sports Illustrated