He started playing basketball at age 9, became the world champion at 17, the European trophy winner at 20, and the Olympic champion three years later – this is the story of Lithuania’s legendary player, Arvydas Sabonis.
Sabonis was born on December 19, 1964, in Kaunas, Lithuania’s second-largest city. “He had long arms, long legs, broad shoulders, he was flexible and quick to catch everything,” recalled the player’s first coach, Yuri Fyodorov, when he spoke to LRT in 2020. The coach immediately knew the nine-year-old boy had potential.
But this didn’t happen overnight. At one point, Fyodorov had to convince Sabonis’ parents to bring the boy back to training.
“He had quit basketball, but I went to his parents, pleaded with them, persuaded them, and told them that maybe he would be a star after all. He had an injury, so his parents were scared,” the coach remembered.
Sabonis was also annoyed by the discipline requirements from the coach, Fyodorov recalled.
But his persistence paid off and Sabonis was on his way to start his professional career in 1981 when he joined Žalgiris Kaunas, coached by Vladas Garastas, where he would spend the next eight years.
He proceeded to win the USSR championship with Žalgiris for three consecutive seasons between 1985 and 1987. In 1986, he achieved one of the most impressive victories of his career – the Intercontinental Jones Cup.
Probably one of the most difficult phases of his career was in the 1986–1987 season, when, at the age of 21, he ruptured his Achilles tendon twice.
His long rehabilitation was not helped by the impatience of the Soviet Union's national basketball team, which forced Sabonis, who had not yet fully recovered from his injury, to compete at the 1988 Seoul Olympics.
In 1989, Sabonis ended his eight-year stint in Kaunas and moved to Spain, first joining Valladolid's Forum and Real Madrid in 1992. With the latter, he won the Spanish Basketball League (ACB) twice and the Euroleague in 1995, where he was the top scorer and MVP in the final game.
Sabonis left Spain for the NBA for the first time in his career at the age of 31, joining the Portland Trail Blazers in 1995.
The Trail Blazers had first drafted Sabonis in 1986, but the Soviet government at the time did not allow the best players to go to the United States.
In his first season in the NBA at the age of 31, Sabonis put up impressive numbers in the playoffs, averaging 23.6 points and 10.6 rebounds and finishing second in the Rookie of the Year voting.
After such a performance, the US media questioned what would have happened if he had come to the NBA in his prime. “We would have won four, five, or six titles,” former teammate Clyde Drexler told ESPN.”He was that good.”
“Arvydas Sabonis was simply magical on the court – a big man who made passes without looking and dominated under the basket,” ESPN wrote. “On the court, he was much more creative and daring than anyone else, making passes that no one else had ever seen. He could also just step back and shoot from the three-point line, something that no other player in the centre position had ever attempted before.”
“At the time, Sabonis was considered the best passer in the world,” ESPN added.
Doug Christie, who played with Sabonis on opposite sides of the court in the NBA, remembers the Lithuanian as a “monster” player: “He had a ruptured Achilles tendon and he was still a monster on the court. You can only imagine what kind of game he had when he was young.”
After six years in the US, Sabonis returned to Žalgiris for the 2002–2003 season and retired in 2004 after winning the Lithuanian Basketball League (LKL) title for the first time.
“In basketball, you always have to work, work and work, never stop if you want to improve and be the best,” the Lithuanian basketball legend said in an interview with ESPN.
Sabonis also played for the USSR and Lithuanian basketball teams, winning the World Championship in Colombia in 1982, the European Championship gold in 1985, and the Seoul Olympics in 1988.
Representing the independent Lithuanian basketball team, Sabonis won bronze at the 1992 Barcelona and 1996 Atlanta Olympic Games and was the European silver medal winner in 1995.
After his career as a basketball player, Arvydas Sabonis served as President of the Lithuanian Basketball Federation from 2011 to 2021. He was voted European Player of the Year six times (in 1984, 1985, 1988, 1995, 1997, and 1999) and Lithuanian Player of the Year four times (in 1984, 1985, 1986, and 1996). In 1992, he was given the award for the best Lithuanian basketball player of all time.
After retiring in 2004, he also became the first Lithuanian to be included in the FIBA Hall of Fame in 2010, and a year later, he received the same recognition in the NBA.
From generation to generation
Together with his wife Ingrida Mikelionyte, whom he married in 1990, Sabonis had four children – Žygimantas, Tautvydas, Domantas, and Aušrinė.
Tautvydas is currently on the coaching staff of Žalgiris, while Domantas is following in his dad's footsteps by playing in the NBA with the Sacramento Kings.
In an interview with ESPN, Domantas revealed that he found out that his dad was a basketball star at the age of 10 when he typed his name into a YouTube search box and came across endless videos.
“I didn't know he was that good,” admitted Domantas. “If I passed the ball like that, it would just hit my teammate's head.”
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