Hakeem Olajuwon
Teams
Houston Rockets - 1984-01
Toronto Raptors - 2001-02
Playoffs
Appearances - 15 (1985,1986,1987,1988,1989,1990,1991,1993,1994,1995,1996,1997,1998,1999,2002)
Conference Finals - 4 (1986,1994,1995,1997)
NBA Finals - 3 (1986,1994,1995)
Championships - 2 (1994,1995)
Awards and Honors
MVP - 1 (1994)
Finals MVP - 2 (1994,1995)
Defensive Player of the Year - 2 (1993,1994)
All-NBA First Team - 6 (1986,1987,1988,1989,1990,1993,1994,1995,1996,1997)
All-NBA Second Team - 3 (1985,1986,1990,1996)
All-NBA Third Team - 3 (1991,1992,1995,1999)
Hall of Fame - 2008
*(actual in bold, deserved in italics)
All-Time Ranks
Total Blocks - #1
Blocks Per Game - #3
Total Steals - #10
Total Points - #14
Total Rebounds - #15
Rebounds Per Game - #33
Steals Per Game - #38
Points Per Game - #40
Field Goal Percentage - #97
League Leads
Total Blocks (#1-1990,1993, #2-1985,1992,1994, #3-1986,1987,1989, #4-1988,1991,1995, #5-1996)
Blocks Per Game (#1-1990,1991,1993, #2-1985,1992,1994,1995, #3-1986,1987, #4-1988,1989,1996)
Rebounds Per Game (#1-1989,1990, #3-1988, #4-1985,1993,1994, #5-1992)
Total Rebounds (#1-1989,1990, #3-1988, #4-1985,1993)
Total Points (#3-1993,1994, #4-1995,1996)
Points Per Game (#2-1995,1996, #3-1994, #4-1993)
Total Steals (#3-1989)
Field Goal Percentage (#3-1999)
After reaching the Final Four in three straight seasons with Houston, including back-to-back losses in the championship game, Hakeem Olajuwon was drafted by the Houston Rockets with the #1 overall pick in the 1984 NBA Draft.
Olajuwon was great in his rookie season, averaging 20.6 points, 11.9 rebounds, and 2.9 blocks per game, but did not win the Rookie of the Year because Michael Jordan was also a rookie that year. He and Ralph Sampson led the Rockets to the playoffs, but they lost in the first round.
The next season, Hakeem and the Rockets both continued to improve, with Olajuwon averaging 23.5 points, 11.5 rebounds, and 3.4 blocks and leading Houston on a deep playoff run. They faced the defending champions, the Lakers, in the Conference Finals, and beat them in 5 games, putting them in the NBA Finals for the second time in team history, but the Boston Celtics knocked off the young Rockets in a 6-game series.
The next season was the last one where Ralph Sampson would be healthy enough to play a full season, and it ended with the Rockets going out in the second round. He was eventually traded in the 1987-88 season, making Olajuwon the team's undisputed leader, but the team didn't add other stars around him, and they lost in the first round of the playoffs 4 straight times before missing the playoffs completely in 1992.
He did have some impressive individual seasons during that time, leading the league in rebounds in 1989 and 1990, and leading the league in blocks in 1990 and 1991. His 1990 averages of 24.3 points, 14.0 rebounds, and 4.6 blocks were especially impressive, but still not enough to make a title contender. He would have led the league in rebounding again in 1991, but he missed too many games to qualify for the leaderboard due to a broken eye socket he suffered after an elbow to the face. After the 1992 season, he publicly demanded a trade, but it never happened, and it turned out to be a good thing it didn't.
In the 1992-93 season, Olajuwon averaged 26.1 points, 13.0 rebounds, and led the league with 4.2 blocks per game, and he finished as the runner-up in MVP voting and won the Defensive Player of the Year award for the first time. Houston made it back to the playoffs, and nearly made the Conference Finals, losing to Seattle in 7 games in the second round.
The next season was one of the greatest in history. Olajuwon averaged 27.3 points, 11.9 rebounds, a career high 3.6 assists, and 3.7 blocks while leading Houston to 58 wins. His performance earned him both the MVP and Defensive Player of the Year awards, a rare feat, but then he led the Rockets to the championship, beating Patrick Ewing and the Knicks in the Finals in 7 games, earning the Finals MVP and becoming the only player in history to earn all three of those major awards in the same season.
He averaged a career high 27.8 points the next year, but the Rockets struggled, ending up as the 6th seed in the West. They added Clyde Drexler, Olajuwon's college teammate, in a late-season trade, and the reunion, helped both players, and the pair led Houston back to the NBA Finals, where they swept Shaq and the Magic in 4 games, with Hakeem averaging 33 points per game in the Finals to repeat as Finals MVP.
After falling in the second round to Seattle the next year, the Rockets added Charles Barkley in an attempt to make one last run at a championship, and the star trio was able to get the Rockets all the way back to the Conference Finals, but they fell to Malone, Stockton, and the Jazz in 6 games.
Olajuwon missed more than 2 months in the middle of the next season due to injury, and the result was the worst season of his career to that point, averaging only 16.4 points to end his streak of 13 straight seasons of more than 20 points per game. He had one more strong season after that, averaging 18.9 points and 9.6 rebounds, but he was the only remaining star on the team after Drexler and Barkley had retired, and the Rockets lost in the first round.
Olajuwon missed a lot of games due to injury over the next 2 years, and the team started to rebuild with younger stars, leading them to trade him away to the Toronto Raptors in 2001. He played one final season north of the border, averaging only 7.1 points per game before retiring in the summer of 2002.
In addition to his awards, which include an MVP, 2 Finals MVPs, and 2 DPOY awards, Olajuwon is the all-time leader in blocked shots and #10 in steals, while also ranking 14th in points and 15th in rebounds, the only player to appear in the top 15 in four of the five major categories. He also led the league in rebounding twice and blocked shots 3 times, and is the only player to ever record 200 blocks and 200 steals in the same season, and he is easily one of the greatest to ever play the game.
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