09/16/2026
NEVER underestimate the value of FUNDAMENTALS 👍👍
Wilt Chamberlain Watched Arvydas Sabonis Tear Apart NBA Centers at 34 Years Old on Two Bad Knees. Then Said He Learned the Game From Tapes of How They Played in the 1950s and 60s.
Arvydas Sabonis arrived in the NBA at 31 years old with two destroyed Achilles tendons and a decade of European basketball already behind him.
By the time he was 34 Wilt Chamberlain was watching and had a very specific observation to make.
"After playing for 10 or 15 years in Europe, where he was an outstanding player, he came here to play in the NBA, supposedly the cream de la cream of world basketball. Here, at about 34 years old and in spite of two bad knees, Sabonis is tearing most of our centers apart."
Tearing most of our centers apart. At 34. On two bad knees. After a decade and a half of European basketball had already taken everything it could take from his body.
Wilt had a theory about how that was possible.
"Sabonis learned his game from old tapes of how we used to play back in the '50s and '60s and was taught by European coaches who learned their games from us. Using a sound knowledge of the game, he has made himself look better than most players who are younger and in far better physical shape."
Sound knowledge of the game. Beating athletes who were younger. In far better physical shape.
The most physically dominant player in basketball history watched a broken-down Lithuanian center with bad knees dismantle the NBA and identified the reason immediately.
He learned from the old tapes.
From the era when the game was built on fundamentals and footwork and basketball IQ rather than athleticism and explosiveness.
Wilt averaged 50.4 points per game for a season. He still looked at Sabonis at 34 on ruined knees and saw exactly what the Europeans had preserved that the modern game had forgotten.
Old school basketball.
Still working.
