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BARCELONA ’92 OLYMPICS / DAY 7 : SUMMER GAMES SPOTLIGHT : HE COULD HAVE BEEN A BIG NBA FACTOR

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<i> The Times</i>

The one that got away: How good would Lithuania’s 7-4, 275-pound Arvidas Sabonis be if he had come to the United States as a teen-ager, as did Detlef Schrempf of Germany?

“As good as any other great center in the NBA,” says Donn Nelson, an assistant coach for the Golden State Warriors and Lithuania. “You can see his talent. It just oozes out of him.

“You look at him. He’s as big as Mark Eaton. He has Chris Mullin hands. He can shoot it like Bill Laimbeer. He has the whole package.”

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The problem is, sometimes the talent only oozes out.

“I saw Sabonis when he was 18, the first time he came to the States (in 1983),” says NBC’s Billy Packer. “At that time, I thought if he’d come to America for high school, he would have been a legend. He played Ralph Sampson to an absolute standstill.

“Obviously, he’s just a shell of himself now.

“He’s gained a lot of weight. He’s been injured. All you can see now are the real soft hands, and that’s it.”

Sabonis scored 21 points and had 16 rebounds Friday during a loss to the Commonwealth of Independent States. Not bad for a shell.

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