Chapter 636 - 28 The Irritable Sabonis

Although Sabonis is quite low-key off the court and appears honest and simple beside Gan Guoyang,

on the basketball court there are no real honest people, it’s all relative.

Compared to ordinary people, NBA basketball players are a bunch of irritable and even more irritable people, with a portion being fiercely competitive.

People like Gan Guoyang, who are measured in their actions but genuinely hot-headed—how else could they start throwing punches when words fail, and not just for show?

Sabonis also had his moments of rage. In the 1986 European Champions Cup final, before his major injury, during the game between Žalgiris (Lithuania) and Cibona (Croatia), a Cibona player got into a physical conflict with a Žalgiris player during a fast break counterattack and elbowed him.

At that moment, Sabonis charged at the Cibona player like a truck and sent him flying with a punch (4).

Coincidentally, Dražen Petrović was right next to the involved parties, hoping to mediate and prevent the fight.

Who knew that Sabonis would knock someone over with a punch, leaving Petrović bewildered. He didn’t dare confront Sabonis.

With Sabonis’s bear-like stature, who would dare to step up? His own teammate was laid out on the ground unable to rise.

Thus, the final ruling was Sabonis being the only one ejected from the game while the rest stayed on since the fight never escalated. No one dared to step in.

In 1986, a young and spirited Sabonis paid the price for that punch.

He had already scored 27 points by then, with Žalgiris in the lead, and winning the game would have made them European champions.

After he was ejected, Žalgiris lost their core and couldn’t compete with Petrović’s Cibona team.

Ultimately, Žalgiris lost the game and handed over the European championship to Petrović and Cibona, securing Cibona’s reign as two-time European champions.

So, Sabonis is certainly not some honest player on the court; life in the rough interior lines isn’t for the meek.

Only a few players like Mark Price, a guard, genuinely have a good-natured demeanor, playing the game and not getting physical.

If that 1986 incident involved someone like Isiah Thomas instead of Petrović, don’t think that just because you’re a bear—even if you were an elephant—he wouldn’t rush up to throw a punch to settle the score—unless you are Ah Gan.

In the first half of the game, Sabonis was somewhat rattled by Ewing and Gan Guoyang’s continuous advice only agitated Sabonis further.

Sabonis knew that Ah Gan meant well, and his advice was indeed spot on; cutting through the middle was indeed effective.

But Sabonis wasn’t exactly a rookie; he had already made a name for himself in Europe, played for years, and was Europe’s number one superstar.

Like Petrović, he was a proud man, albeit Petrović was more outwardly so whereas Sabonis was more reserved.

While he didn’t have the combative heart and wildness of Petrović or Ah Gan, that spirit was nevertheless ignited tonight.

Outplayed by the opposing center and being tutored by the team leader as if he were a primary school student, Sabonis realized he had to do something.

Gan Guoyang didn’t pay much attention to the change in Sabonis’s emotions and simply patted his shoulder in the locker room, without saying much else.

The NBA is a long journey where even star players rough it out when they first join the league.

Take Ewing, for example, who entered the NBA amid great fanfare and high expectations.

Yet in his first and second year, he suffered major injuries, the Knicks finished at the bottom of the Atlantic Division, and Ewing’s performance was less than satisfactory.

It took him over three years to come into his own, to refine his technique, and with the team’s development, he began to shine.

Players like Gan Guoyang, Magic, Jabbar, and Jordan, who dominated as soon as they entered the league, are indeed a rare few.

Sabonis still has a long road ahead, but tonight he wasn’t about to be completely subdued.

The third quarter began with Sabonis continuing to start.

Ewing was still in excellent form, a rarity for him against the Trail Blazers.

The first offensive play of the second half, Jerome Kossie’s low-post turnaround and drive for a floater was promptly blocked out of bounds by a defensive Ewing.

Out of bounds play, Hornacek receives the ball utilizing Gan Guoyang’s screen for a mid-range jumper that misses.

Gan Guoyang slips in to snatch the offensive rebound beneath the basket, drawing a foul from Oakley, heading to the free-throw line.

Ewing’s block was indeed impressive, but his protection of the defensive rebounds had always been a problem.

As a top-tier center, he never averaged more than 10 rebounds a game after joining the league.

This was quite unacceptable.

In college, his height and arm span allowed him to easily grab rebounds.

Therefore, he never developed a good habit of boxing out under the basket, which made him susceptible to losing rebounds.

The Knicks had no choice but to trade for Oakley to assist Ewing, to compensate for Ewing’s lack of defensive rebounding.

Oakley simply couldn’t win the box-out in the three-second zone against Ah Gan and sent him to the free-throw line.

Two successful free-throws, and the Trail Blazers continue to widen their lead.

Ewing’s spectacular block ended up being in vain.

On the offensive end, the Knicks still started from Ewing.

Mark Jackson’s pass to Ewing, Ewing catches the ball and swiftly turns inside, driving through the middle.

He dips his shoulder to push Sabonis aside and goes for a left-handed layup under the basket. Sabonis, unwilling to let Ewing score easily, vigorously attempts to block him.