Kamusta ka, Kareem ?

Dalawang bagay ang madalas kong marinig tungkol kay Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.

Una, hindi na mabubura ang pangalan niya sa mga record ng NBA. Pangalawa, masungit siya, mahirap makausap at di madapuan ng langaw.

Kaya ganoon na lamang ang aming kaba nang makilala namin siya sa isang panayam sa adidas Superstar Camp sa Shanghai, China. Sinimulan namin ang interbyu sa kanyang bagong Sky Hook collection ng mga sapatos, damit at iba pa, na pawang gawa ng adidas.

"I think that the reason they gave me a chance is the fact that what I did, the legacy I left, still has not been surpassed in terms of achievement. And achievement has to count for something. So teaching young people who want to achieve, they can still emulate what I did," paliwanag niya.

Sa dinami-dami ng mga natamo niya sa NBA, mayroon bang isa na hindi niya makakalimutan?

"I don’t know if I can say it was the defining moment of my career, but certainly it was the most satisfying moment of my career: beating the Celtics in 1985," sabi ni Jabbar, na nakakuha ng limang NBA championship kasama ng Los Angeles Lakers noong dekada 80. "I won the MVP in the playoffs and I’m still the oldest person to do that. So it was a very, very important milestone for me, because it was a testimony of my endurance and quality of my career from the front to the back."

Sa larangan ng basketbol, may natitira pa ba siyang inasam na hindi niya nakuha?

"With regard to basketball, I don’t have any complaints. A few things could have gone better: if we hadn’t been injured in 1983 and in 1989 -- we could have won seven championships with the Lakers. That’s just the breaks of the game. Personally, I had hoped to meet Sophia Loren, but it never happened," pagpapatawa niya. "We all have to deal with some disappointment."

Tinanong din namin kung saan nagmula ang lagda niyang tira, ang tatak niya, ang kinatatakutang Sky Hook.

"Sky hook is basically what I use from what I learned from George Mikan," alala ni Jabbar. "When I was in the fifth or sixth grade, the people in my grade school were saying, "Hey, you’re pretty tall. You might be a center one day. So maybe you should learn these moves in the pivot." And I was just fortunate enough to be working on it that early, as part of my game."

Malinaw na malapit sa puso ni Jabbar ang kanyang pamamamalagi sa UCLA, kung saan tatlong taong hindi nakatikim ang Bruins sa basketbol. Sino ba sa dalawa niyang pinakakilalang coach ang mas magaling?

"You can’t compare them. John Wooden has forgotten more about the game than Pat Riley will ever get to know," mabilis niyang sagot. "And that’s not a knock on Pat. But John Wooden is just a cut above every other coach I’ve played for. Pat Riley worked hard and did a great job; I take nothing from him. John Wooden is just in a class by himself."

Gaya ng maraming retiradong player, may paalala rin si Jabbar sa mga manlalaro ng NBA ngayon.

"I think young players today don’t appreciate how great the oppor-tunity is for them to play in the NBA. They take it for granted that there is a professional basketball league that will pay them lots of money to do what they love. It wasn’t always like that," dagdag niya. "In the early days, they had to endure segregated hotels in Atlanta, things of that nature, being cheated out of their salaries. That was part and parcel of it. There’s a whole lot of things about this game that were quite different. People didn’t see that it would end up like this, the most popular game in the world."