One was raised up in Kaunas, Lithuania, perhaps the one city in the world where basketball is indisputably the king of sports.
The other was discovered on a sparsely populated island in Cape Verde that is dedicated to salt production. He didn't touch a basketball until age 17.
Both grew to be more than 2.20 meters tall and came to dominate either end of the court at basketball cathedrals across Europe.
Arvydas Sabonis is widely considered the greatest offensive player his size in European basketball history. The Turkish Airlines EuroLeague Final Four takes place this week in his home city, where he is an icon like no other.
Walter Tavares continues making a claim as the greatest defensive player his size that the EuroLeague has known. He will aim for his second continental title this week for the team with whom Sabonis lifted his only such trophy, Real Madrid.
Both will be in the same building, Zalgirio Arena, this weekend, which sparks the imagination to wonder: What if they played each other?
The legend of Sabonis
Sabonis dominated in three different decades. In the mid-1980s, in his early 20s, he was a freak of nature, a super-sized center who could run the floor like a guard and jump through the roof. He led Zalgiris Kaunas to the 1986 EuroLeague championship game, but lost to Cibona Zagreb.
A series of injuries, including two Achilles tendon tears, limited his explosiveness and mobility. Still, Sabonis made the most out of his magic passing skills and extremely deep shooting range to find other ways to be dominant. After moving to Spain, he would become the 1995 Final Four MVP for what was Real's only EuroLeague title between 1981 and 2015. After going to the NBA to average 12.0 points and 7.3 rebounds in 420 career games with Portland, he returned to Zalgiris for his final season, in 2003-04. About to turn 40 years old, he averaged 16.7 points, 10.7 rebounds, 2.4 assists and 1.6 blocks in 18 games, coming up seconds short of taking his hometown team back to the Final Four.
In his international career, Sabonis won three Olympic medals: gold with Soviet Union in 1988, bronze with Lithuania in 1992 and 1996. He has been honored as a member of both the FIBA Hall of Fame and Basketball Hall of Fame.
