By Johnny Askounis/ [email protected]
NBA legend and a former EuroLeague champion, Dominique Wilkins, used a fellow member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in Ralph Sampson, in a conversation about the abilities of French prodigy Victor Wembanyama.
“To be 7-foot-3 and to handle the basketball, shoot the three, get to the basket, he’s a once-in-a-lifetime type of talent. But I’ll tell you who he is in today’s game: he’s Ralph Sampson,” he said in a recent interview with Esports Insider, “Ralph Sampson had all those same skills, but he wasn’t permitted to take threes. Coaches weren’t allowing the big guys to take threes back then. Ralph could shoot with range, run the floor, post up, block shots, do it all until his knees went bad. That’s who Wemby is, Ralph Sampson.”
Exploring overseas options, the Human Highlight Film extended his career beyond the NBA and into Europe via Panathinaikos in the 1995-96 season and Teamsystem Bologna in the 1997-98 season. In 1992, Sampson played in Spain and had a brief spell with Unicaja Ronda before calling it a day.
Wilkins was also asked about Luka Doncic and specifically the stunning midseason trade shifting the Slovenian sensation from the Dallas Mavericks to the Los Angeles Lakers.
“Like everybody across the world, I was shocked,” he confessed, “Luka, 25 years old and one of the top five or six players in the league. You trade a player like that? That’s a tough one to digest. Everybody was shocked, and maybe there was something there we don’t know. Who knows? But wherever he plays, they are going to be a team that has a chance.”