10/26/2026
Courtesy of Milan M. Filipović
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Portland's Team Doctor Looked at Arvydas Sabonis's X-Rays Before He Ever Landed in America. He Said Sabonis Could Qualify for a Handicapped Parking Spot. Sabonis Played Seven Seasons and Made the Playoffs Every Single Year.
Arvydas Sabonis is in the Hall of Fame, and some people who saw him in his prime believe he could have been one of the greatest players in history. The problem is that most of the world never saw that version of him, and the reason is written all over his medical file.
Portland drafted him in 1986, the same year he ruptured his Achilles tendon. Two years later he was rehabbing with the Blazers' medical staff after 18 months out, and the Seoul Olympics were coming. His Soviet surgeon and Portland's team doctor, Robert Cook, both warned him not to play. Soviet officials cleared him anyway. He went, the Soviet Union won gold, and the injuries kept piling up. Foot, ankle, knee.
By the time Sabonis finally came to the NBA in 1995 at 30 years old, Portland general manager Bob Whitsitt wanted to know what he was getting. He asked Dr. Cook to look at the X-rays first, and the doctor's response was unforgettable.
"He (Dr. Cook) said that Arvydas could qualify for a handicapped parking spot based on the X-ray alone."
Portland signed him anyway. Sabonis knew exactly how much of himself was left, and he described it with a line that sounds like poetry.
"I am no longer a locomotive, only a small trolley."
The pain never went away. Blazers trainer Jay Jensen checked his foot every single day, and the answer was always the same.
"He would say, 'It's the same. It hurts. It's always the same.' What changed from day to day was how much it hurt."
Jensen had seen the same X-rays as everyone else and still couldn't understand how Sabonis functioned.
"You would look at his X-rays and you would say, 'How in the world is he (Sabonis) running up and down the floor?'"
The most Sabonis moment of all came before Game 3 of the 2000 Western Conference semifinals in Salt Lake City. Minutes before tipoff, his ankle locked up and he could barely move. He limped into the trainer's room while Portland prepared a new lineup, and as the staff worked on it, something gave a loud clunk and popped back into place. He went out and scored 22 points with eight rebounds.
Vlade Divac once said that a healthy Sabonis who came over earlier would belong in the same conversation as Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, and Larry Bird. Portland got the small trolley version, and it was still good enough to keep them in the playoffs for seven straight years.
