Best Big Men to Ever Play the Game

[Victor]

"Ex-players and current players alike contend that Sabonis, fairly unknown in the U.S., would have been recognized as one of the top centers ever to play the game of basketball had he come to America in his prime."

[barryc83]

damn you victor i was gonna do the same thing.

[Assani Fisher]

[ QUOTE ]
"Ex-players and current players alike contend that Sabonis, fairly unknown in the U.S., would have been recognized as one of the top centers ever to play the game of basketball had he come to America in his prime."

[/ QUOTE ]

Yes, he was one of the greatest centers to ever play the game. He wasn't RECOGNIZED for it because he didn't come to America during his prime. OP's questions wasn't who was recognized as the greatest ever but who was the greatest ever, no?

[barryc83]

well how do you know just how good he was if he wasnt playing the best of the best like all of the other players on the list. I mean he was a solid center for POR but nowhere near best ever. I dont care what he couldve been in the nba, I care about what he was.

[Assani Fisher]

[ QUOTE ]
well how do you know just how good he was if he wasnt playing the best of the best like all of the other players on the list. I mean he was a solid center for POR but nowhere near best ever. I dont care what he couldve been in the nba, I care about what he was.

[/ QUOTE ]

The question wasn't "Who was the best in the NBA?"

The question was "Who was the best ever?"


Thats great that you only care about the NBA, but that wasn't OPs question at all.

How do we know just how good he was if he wasn't playing in the NBA? Well I'd assume that all of those NBA players I quoted above did indeed play against him and weren't just throwing out random compliments for the hell of it.

I've heard Sabonis described before as "Shaq with Magic's passing ability."

Is it harder to evaluate a player when he didn't play against the best? Absolutely. Does that mean we shouldn't even try? I certainly don't think so.

[Assani Fisher]

Also just to add: When he came to Portland it was after a ton of injuries that severely limtited him. The best comparison I can think of is Shaq right now but with even worse knee ailments.

Furthermore, he did indeed play against top competition. More from the wiki article:

Although the political climate in the Soviet Union did not allow Sabonis to play in the NBA, he did travel to the U.S. to rehabilitate his ankle injuries with the Blazers' training staff. In between rehab stints, "Sabas" would find himself out on the court playing pickup games with Clyde Drexler, Terry Porter and others. Observers strongly contend even to this day, that had Sabonis played for the Blazers in the early 1990s, they would likely have won a NBA championship.

[Victor]

well, assani, that settles its. irrefutable evidence indeed. nothing is more certain than the hypothetical predictions of observers.

[ClassicBob]

Assani,

You make comments about not ranking players like Wilt and Russell because they didn't play in your lifetime, so you didn't see them.

Did you see lots of Sabonis in his prime? Or are you just basing this on what other people say? Why can you do this with Sabas but not Wilt/Russell/others?

[Assani Fisher]

[ QUOTE ]
well, assani, that settles its. irrefutable evidence indeed. nothing is more certain than the hypothetical predictions of observers.

[/ QUOTE ]

Victor, I don't really understand what you want me to say here. It seems to me as if we have two choices:

-To simply not rank Sabonis at all

-To go by the info we have and rank him to the best of our abilities


If you want to choose the former, then thats fine. But I'd rather, for the sake of debate, chooes the latter.

I never claimed that I had great evidence for Sabonis. I'm just ranking him as best as I can. What exactly do you disagree with here??