As the son of Hall of Famer Arvidas Sabonis, Domintas Sabonis has seen his progress every season, and as one of the league's best big men, we've seen his growth in the last five seasons.
As a big player from Lithuania who is 2.11 meters tall, he qualified for the team's starting list after leaving the Thunder, and he has been selected as an Eastern Conference All-Star in the last two seasons. In fact, his performance last season was not as rapid as before, largely due to the excellent state he played at the beginning of the season, but in fact, his outstanding performance in the team also made many fans see his efforts, so that he did not enter the All-Star roster at the beginning of the list and caused a lot of controversy. With Durant missing the All-Star Game due to injury problems, the league invited Sabonis to the All-Star Game.
Sabonis's real improvement began in the 2019-2020 season, when he got a double-double of 50 times, completing a career record while also breaking the record of team history. After entering the 2020-2021 season, Sabonis won two doubles in 16 consecutive games, successfully breaking the longest double-double in the team's history. In the game against the Knicks in December, he scored a career-high 32 points, and then he scored 22 points, 11 assists and 10 rebounds in the game against the Bulls, which was his first triple-double of the 2021 season.
In a team like the Pacers that has been on the fringes of the Eastern Conference playoffs, although Sabonis still has some gaps compared to the top big men in the league, he still occupies a crucial position in this team. In his 36 minutes per game last season, he was able to contribute 20.3 points, 12 rebounds and 6.7 assists to the team, and was on the starting list for more than half of the games he played, and it was thanks to these foundations that Sabonis was able to set some datasheet records almost every night.
In the january match against the Suns, the individual won the first super double-double of 28 points and 22 rebounds, and 22 rebounds was also a new career high. In the game against the Grizzlies in February, he scored a career-high 32 points, and in the subsequent game against the Bucks, he once again scored a new scoring record with 33 points. In overtime with the Timberwolves in mid-February, he scored a triple-double of 36 points, 10 assists and 16 rebounds, setting a new team record.
As a big player with excellent blocking and covering ability on the offensive end and organizing the attack to grasp, his presence has become a necessity for almost every attack of the team, almost every offensive round of basketball passes through his hands, and almost every score is directly or indirectly related to him. At the same time, his performance on the court is not limited to offense, but also on the defensive end, and he spent most of his playing time last season with Miles Turner as a partner, who as a protection for the basket in the penalty area, sabonis naturally has more defensive tasks to the outside. In such a choice, Sabonis needs to have such excellent movement speed that he still has a good defensive efficiency between running back and forth inside and out. Data shows that last season, Sabonis averaged almost four kilometers per game per game, which is the highest position among the league's interior players. But even under such demands, the performance he handed over was still efficient.
Of course, it is precisely because of the role he has played on the field, and such heavy work has also caused his form to decline somewhat after the beginning of the season. During February last season, he averaged 22.8 points per game for the team, but as the schedule entered March, Sabonis' average points per game dropped to 17.5 points per game, and even in some games, his personal scores were not even in double digits.
In the follow-up, Sabonis missed six games due to his ankle injury, during which he was given plenty of time to rest, and in May after returning from injury, Sabonis played in nine games, averaging 23 points, 9.6 assists and 14 rebounds per game. In the playoffs of the follow-up team, Sabonis's performance is still stable and excellent, in the game against the Hornets, he personally scored 14 points, 9 assists and 21 rebounds, and in the second playoff game with the Wizards, he got a triple-double of 19 points, 10 assists and 11 rebounds, although in the end their team did not become the winning party, but Sabonis's outstanding performance was in the eyes of fans.
Compared to the previous 2019 season, Sabonis averaged about three points per game, averaging 12 rebounds per game and at the forefront of the league, contributing 6.7 assists per game to lead the team. On the personal data sheet, Sabonis got 48 double-doubles, although it was a slight decline compared to the previous 2019 season, but he won nine triple-doubles in a single season, refreshing the previous team record of five triple-doubles in a single season set by Stephenson in 2013. As a big player on the inside, he was able to grow into a pillar player of a team in such a short period of time, and such progress is definitely worthy of our appreciation.
At the end of this year's season summary meeting, he talked about his state in an interview with reporters, he believes that this season's self is completely different from last season's two players, at the same time, Sabonis blamed his success that season on his hard work in the off-season, after entering the All-Star list, he is very aware that he will take on more roles and responsibilities in the team in the future, so he deliberately strengthened his ability to read games on the field in follow-up training. As well as the cultivation of the overall vision on the field.
Compared to his scoring and rebounding and assisting statistics, his outside projection has also improved significantly compared to previous seasons, in the previous 2019 season, he shot 67 times on the outside, and in the 2020 season, he shot 167 times outside the three-point line, and while the number increased, his three-point shooting rate increased from 25% to 33%. Although there are still some gaps in this statistic for the top pitchers in the league, as a big player, he can definitely play such a performance is definitely good enough.
In the offseason of this season, Sabonis also played for the Lithuanian men's basketball team, and after these tasks are completed, he still has to pay more attention to his performance in the new season. The Pacers actually did well last season, but a lot of blame was on their team's injuries and ultimately failed to make it to the playoffs. After the start of the new season, they will usher in a healthy team lineup, among which people like TJ Warren, Le Ver, Brogdon, Sabonis and others will usher in a new start, which will also be the beginning of the Indiana Pacers' return.
In the previous interview he talked about with reporters, he clearly gave his attitude:
After the healthy return of all of our team in the new season, there will be a lot of options in the attack, everyone can score on the offensive end, but there must be some people who will make their own sacrifices, if our team wants to go further in the playoffs, I don't care about sacrificing personal data to achieve our team's progress.
It's a very charismatic statement, he is slowly forming a leader's temperament, we hope that in the new season he can continue to improve in his position, leading this team to higher.