Mutombo’s nightmare and Horry’s dream: Olajuwon

 With two iconic figures from mid-90’s NBA basketball in attendance at Covent Garden’s NBA Fan House, it would have been remiss of me not to get seven-time NBA Champion Robert Horry and four-time Defensive Player of the Year winner, Dikembe Mutombo, discussing the best big man of that era.

Despite a period that saw the middle dominated by centres Alonzo Mourning, Patrick Ewing, Shaquille O’Neal, Tim Duncan and David Robinson, one man stands above all others.

Hakeem ‘The Dream’ Olajuwon.

“Hakeem will always be number one,” explained Olajuwon’s team-mate from 1992 to 1996. “Out of all the big guys I’ve played with, the one thing that separates him is, he’s an excellent defender (and) all those guys are great defenders. He’s an excellent free throw shooter, all those guys are poor free throw shooters. It makes a huge difference.

“Dream was just an incredible basketball player.

“Then it’d probably be a tie between Shaq and Tim. Probably Shaq outweighing Tim because….Shaq outweighs Tim!”

Dikembe Mutombo was in complete agreement: “I have a great respect for Patrick Ewing and Alonzo Mourning (like Mutombo, both are former Georgetown players) but even both of them will tell you that there is nobody who ever got a chance with Hakeem Olajuwon. Not just because he was from Africa, from Nigeria, but the guy was phenomenal.

“People always wondering if he was a power forward or a centre or maybe a small forward but he was able to show each one of us; from David Robinson, Shaquille O’Neal to Patrick Ewing, that he was a little bit more superior.

“I knew that every night when I was guarding him that he was going to get his 30, I was just making sure he wasn’t getting 40!

Mutombo sat back in silence for a second, recalling his encounters with the man who scored over 30,000 career points using more offensive moves than a chess Grandmaster, before he continued with a smile “I think that’s what made me a great defender!

“My coach used to look at me ‘Hey Deke, what you going to do tonight? Your boy is going to give you 40 or 45?’

“I’d be like ‘Come on! I don’t need no help!'”