Yao talks about his second year in NBA

Huh? I dont undestand.. Does he want to play like Shaq or he stil wants to play like his old style?

 

It's like the Last Samurai, must combine old with the new.

 

Sabonis should have been the BEST center EVER had the Soviets not tried to drug him to make him "better".

At least that's what they said in SLAM...

 

Bearing in mind how much of a pounding Sabonis's knees had taken by the time he made the NBA (he was a BIG man), I dread to think what he would have been like in his prime. Great around the basket, range out to the three point line, up there as one of the best passing big men ever.

If Yao wants to be like him, fantastic.

 

Yao will get there, dude just starting his second year, and look at the improvement, he looks significantly stronger...

the best thing is he himself acknowledges he needs to get even stronger....the thing about Yao is he has the heart, and he always wants to improve...

 

i've seen a bunch of clips on sabas from when he was younger. and i remember the way he absolutely dominated and dismanteled the us olympic team. let me say this: had he come to the nba when you was younger, he would have gone down as one of the top 3 or 4 centers of all time.

as hard as it is to believe or imagine, sabas had the agility and range of kg, the strength of an olajuwon, and the passing ability of walton. his athleticism was outstanding as well. i don't know his vertical, but he was easily above the square on the backboard. sabas was astonishing.

 

also when sabas was 23 (yao's age), he weighed approximately 250 (significantly smaller than the current Yao 310). It will be interesting to see how big our Yao at his prime will be.

 

That has been noticeable in Yao's game this year, i.e., Ewing's influence, and Yao's attempting to learn what Ewing wants to teach----i.e., back-it-down, wait-for-the-double-team, kick-it-out. It tends to clash with Yao's more fluid style. But, then again, when has this offense never "clashed"?

Still, Yao has shown much improvement these past few games. When he becomes more comfortable and makes quicker decisions, then he will become truly dangerous.

And he's right. He wants to dominate; Ewing, once a dominant center, wants Yao to dominate; hopefully we will have a hybrid, a dominant Sabonis type.

I have really enjoyed watching Yao hit Cato and others with his passes. Please let it continue!!

P.S. How will Yao's evolution as a stronger player affect our roster at power forward? Cato just had a great game and has finally not been a bust; will we keep him or make adjustments, with a nod to the strength of the Western Conference?

 

there is only one shaq, and unless yao gets stuck in to the cheeeseburgers he won't ever be one. i think its good that he is going to form his own legacy and be himself.

 

http://www.**************/articles/sabonis_linas.htm

If Yao can even approach the level of Sabas, it shall be phenomenal... Sabas was acknowledged to be the best center in the world. he apparently dominated david robinson in '88. here's a pretty good article on him...

 

Here's the article...

No way back
by Linas Kunigelis / November 24, 2003


“NBA? Are you kidding?"

Arvydas Sabonis laughed when asked a few weeks ago whether he was still pondering a return to the NBA. "Look at me," he said. "I am a man with no legs. And my body is falling apart”.

But the former Portland Trail Blazer was partly kidding himself. Just a few months ago this ‘man with no legs’ was still an important piece in the Blazers’ playoff run. The veteran center averaged 15.5 minutes on the floor and produced solid numbers -- 6.1 ppg and 4.3 rpg while shooting 47.6 percent from the field and 78.7 from the free-throw line.

It didn't come as a surprise that during the offseason this 7-foot-3 giant was still receiving offers from NBA teams.

“Really there were two options I was considering this summer -- either Zalgiris Kaunas or Blazers,” says Arvydas, who for 20 years in his native Lithuania is known simply as Sabas. “I could have stayed in Portland and play another year. Maybe two in the best case. But what for? There was no future there for me. They wanted to build a new team with younger players on the roster. I was too old for that. And then here, in Lithuania, I have a lot of thing to do for Zalgiris”.

Zalgiris from Kaunas is the team where more than two decades ago Sabas began his incredible basketball journey. And several years ago, when questions about future retirement started to fall on him, Sabas said that at the end of his career he would wear the Zalgiris green jersey with his legendary number 11 and play his final season for the team he partly owns.

“While my legs are still holding my body on, while I am still healthy, I want to help Kaunas’ team by playing, not by sitting on the bench,” Sabas says. “The most important thing is I still want to play basketball”.

And it is obvious that he still knows how, too. It took only six weeks to get his 38-year-old body in shape and now he is storming through European arenas. After three Euroleague games, Zalgiris is one of the top teams in its group with a 2-1 record. And amazingly, Arvydas Sabonis is still the best -- averaging 16.3 points, 13.3 rebounds and 2.3 blocks and topping all Euroleague players in efficiency ratings.

Looking back, what are your best memories of your time in the NBA?

Arvydas Sabonis: A lot of things have happened. The first season (1996-1997) was interesting. By that time, I was 30 already. I was kind of a mature man, like ‘know everything, been everywhere’. Then I went to NBA and I suddenly felt like a real rookie. Everything was new, unknown -- new world, new people, and new basketball. It was like going to another planet.

I also remember the season when we played the Lakers in the Conference Finals. We were winning by 15 points before the fourth quarter in Game 7 and we blew it away. It was such a heartbreaking loss that many months after I still couldn’t think calm about that game. We had to win that game, go to NBA Finals and, who knows, probably we would have won the championship ring.

You have won almost everything as a basketball player: Olympic gold and bronze medals (twice), World and European championships, European club championship trophies... But now it looks like the NBA champion ring is the dream that you will never be able to achieve?

AS: Probably you, media guys, were dreaming about that ring more than I did myself (laughs). I am not a collector of that kind of stuff. I had a lot of dreams in the past. And when you achieve the one, you say yourself: 'okay, that’s it'. Now you can live a happy quiet life. But some time goes by and you start thinking again: 'maybe I should try that?' That’s how you set another goal for yourself and begin climbing again. And it goes like that -- from one goal to another.

Is there still a dream left for Sabonis?

AS: Of course, there is. But I won’t tell you (laughs).

Now every year more and more Europeans are coming to NBA. But when you went to play in NBA in the mid-90s, there weren't many European names in the league.

AS: It was very difficult for the guys who went there first. Drazen Petrovic, Sarunas Marciulionis, Toni Kukoc -- these are huge stars in Europe, but even those guys had to spent a lot of time on the bench at the beginning. But how can you prove you are good enough when you just sit on the bench? So for them it was real hard. They were the pioneers who paved the way for others. Then, year by year, more and more players were knocking on the NBA door. And then coaches, managers of the American clubs started to say 'these guys are as good as our Americans'.

You have spent seven years in the U.S. playing for the Blazers. Never thought about staying and living there once your career was over?

AS: I had a home in Portland. But it was too far from Lithuania. And that was not good for me. Neither
for my family. The younger generation thinks differently. Things are much simpler for them. They go to a new country and get used to a different lifestyle. Take Zydrunas Ilgauskas, for example. He went to America, quickly adapted and feels happy over there. Not me. Seven years went by and I still didn’t feel comfortable there.

Another reason was my family. Me and my wife spend a big part of the year in Spain because the kids go to school there. So when I play in Kaunas and Europe I can see them and be with them more time than I could do if I was playing 80-90 games in the NBA.

It hard to overestimate what impact you have made to Zalgiris and Lithuania basketball in general over the years. Lithuanian fans are even suggesting that a statue of Sabonis must be built in front of Kaunas Sports Hall… Like Michael Jordan in Chicago.

AS: Maybe they watched too many movies on TV -- probably that’s where that ideas are coming from (laughs).

And what are your goals for Zalgiris this season? Can you make some noise in the Euroleague?

AS: In Lithuania we have to win the champions title. That always is Zalgiris' goal. In Europe? It’s still a bit early to tell. First, it would be good to qualify for the second round. And then we will see.

 

Thank you, littlefish, for the translation.

 

Here's a more in-depth translation of this article that I found on the Yao Ming Mania forum:

Posted by Pryuen

Some very interesting stuff. The part about how he would box out for his teamates to get the rebound sure explains a lot. But it does seem, with his play recently, like he has learned that, that won't cut it in the NBA, and that he has to be aggressive and go after those rebounds himself.

 

Here's another article that was translated on the Yao Ming Mania board:

Can we get a clarification from a translator here on this line:

Because when I first read that he used to be concerned about his own stats, I thought that this game might have been from last season, but he wasn't even close to a double double last season against Seattle. He did have a 19 and 9 game against Seattle A WEEK AND A HALF AGO. There seems to be a lot of contradictary information in this article.

Can any chinese translators give us the scoop?

And btw, I think Yao is setting his sights a little too low. In five years time, I'm hoping that Yao can be hauling down 30 boards, not just in one game, but a few times every season, and at least 10 boards every game and 20 boards on a semi-regular basis.