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Hakeem Olajuwon in the Basketball Hall of Fame

Hakeem Olajuwon, who led the University of Houston to three straight Final Fours and the Houston Rockets to back-to-back NBA titles

Ewing, Olajuwon and Riley were elected in their first year of consideration for election into the Hall of Fame, while Dantley, Davidson, Rush and Vitale have been named Finalists in prior years.

To be elected, a Finalist needs 18 of 24 votes from the Honors Committee for election into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. The Class of 2008 will be enshrined during festivities in Springfield, MA September 4-6, 2008. Ticket packages to the 2008 Enshrinement Gala and all Enshrinement Weekend Events are on-sale now and available by calling the Hall of Fame at (413) 781-6500. Additional Enshrinement Weekend information can also be found at www.hoophall.com.

HAKEEM OLAJUWON - Player, a native of Lagos, Nigeria, spent the lion's share of his basketball career in Houston, Texas where he led the Houston Rockets to back-to-back NBA championships in 1994 and 1995 and the University of Houston to three consecutive Final Four appearances from 1982 to 1984. A two-time Defensive Player of the Year, Olajuwon still holds the NBA record for blocked shots (3,830) and is the only player to record more than 3,000 blocked shots and 2,000 steals in a career. Olajuwon was also a five-time member of the NBA All-Defensive First Team, a six-time All-NBA First Team performer, and the 1994 NBA MVP. He recorded 26,946 points and 13,748 rebounds in 18 NBA seasons, good for ninth and fourteenth respectively on the all-time NBA leader board.

Great accomplishment for the dream, he deserves it, also went down as one of the greatest centers of all time.

hakeem should have refused until guy lewis is also included.

dick vitale doesn't belong there either since he said yao ming would be the biggest draft bust ever.

I thought Vitale made the Collegiate HOF.

EDIT: NVM, damn the NBA needs its own HOF.

Yay! Hakeem finally got in. Well deserved, we all knew he was going to get it.

"Greatest Center to play the game and quite arguably the best player in the History of the NBA," my friend said. After thinking about it, I have to agree with him on some points. Hakeem dominated on both ends of the floor for years. Quite frankly, the defense is the hardest side of the floor to play and that's why you don't see any teams play really great defense anymore. Good teams (foreign) take pride in playing defense and that's what I think the decline is in U.S. basketball. We can't even guard a d@mn pick and roll. Sad. Back to the OT, who else can we say played both ends like Hakeem? Jordan did sometimes, when he needed to. Kobe? Don't make me laugh. I think lebron has the potential to be a great defender, but other than that, not many players today even try on defense. =/

Here's what I thought was funny about that.

First ballot HOF entry
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Maravich

10th try HOF entry
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Dantley
http://www.nba.com/historical/playerfil ... an_dantley

Hmmm now who was better???

PocketRockets wrote:"Greatest Center to play the game and quite arguably the best player in the History of the NBA," my friend said. After thinking about it, I have to agree with him on some points. Hakeem dominated on both ends of the floor for years. Quite frankly, the defense is the hardest side of the floor to play and that's why you don't see any teams play really great defense anymore. Good teams (foreign) take pride in playing defense and that's what I think the decline is in U.S. basketball. We can't even guard a d@mn pick and roll. Sad. Back to the OT, who else can we say played both ends like Hakeem? Jordan did sometimes, when he needed to. Kobe? Don't make me laugh. I think lebron has the potential to be a great defender, but other than that, not many players today even try on defense. =/

Russell and Wilt.

moofs wrote:Here's what I thought was funny about that.

First ballot HOF entry
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pete_Maravich

10th try HOF entry
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adrian_Dantley
http://www.nba.com/historical/playerfil ... an_dantley

Hmmm now who was better???

It's not just the NBA Hall of Fame. Pistol Pete is widely considered one of, if not the, greatest college basketball players of all time. That alone makes you a first ballot, regardless of any team success you had.

dream34 wrote:-= original quote snipped =-



It's not just the NBA Hall of Fame. Pistol Pete is widely considered one of, if not the, greatest college basketball players of all time. That alone makes you a first ballot, regardless of any team success you had.

Which is why the NBA needs its own HOF. I mean come on... the MLB has one, and the NFL has one....

Yes, finally! I've been waiting for this.

T-Mac United wrote:-= original quote snipped =-



Russell and Wilt.

BAN!!!

I can't in good faith put Russell over Kareem, Hakeem, or Shaq.

Hakeem was a sure fire 1st ballot HOF'er. My issue has always been how Drazen Petrovic got in and Adriant Dantley didn't. That's what I've been waiting for. I don't need any dumbass voters to confirm to me how great Hakeem was when he was playing.

T-Mac United wrote:Russell and Wilt.

Didn't Russell at one time say he thought Hakeem was the greatest C to play the game?

I might be mistaken if he did or not, but I could swear he did(I can't find an article or quote backing that up though).

I dont know about that. Russell and Wilt did say that they had the utmost respect for Dream and that he was a firece competitor but either way its not too bad to be ranked behind those 2 guys. All Houston fans know what Dream meant to this city.

RaoulDuke79 wrote:-= original quote snipped =-



Didn't Russell at one time say he thought Hakeem was the greatest C to play the game?

I might be mistaken if he did or not, but I could swear he did(I can't find an article or quote backing that up though).

I don't recall him saying that.

Russell nominated himself as the greatest C to ever play the game, and acknowledged that Wilt's defense could have been as good as his own.
EDIT: I am sure he would have a lot of good things to say about Hakeem as well.

I'd group Russell, Wilt, Jabbar and Hakeem in the top C echelon.

T-Mac United wrote:I don't recall him saying that.

Russell nominated himself as the greatest C to ever play the game, and acknowledged that Wilt's defense could have been as good as his own.

I'd group Russell, Wilt, Jabbar and Hakeem in the top C echelon.

Yea maybe I'm just misremembering(Clemens shout-out). Either way, he's top 4. He goes ahead of Shaq because he played both ends of the floor, and the Dream Shake was the sexiest move in the history of stuff.

Of course, he'll always be #1 in my book, and my heart...

..and my bunny's heart.

Congrats, no surprise, he was as much a lock that there is.

Unfortunately I didn't get to see him play even in his prime but from what I've seen on videos and stats, seemed the guy dominated both ends of the floor and there was nothing he couldn't do on the floor.

Greatest Rocket to have ever played the game.

TMACFORMVP wrote:Congrats, no surprise, he was as much a lock that there is.

Unfortunately I didn't get to see him play even in his prime but from what I've seen on videos and stats, seemed the guy dominated both ends of the floor and there was nothing he couldn't do on the floor.

Greatest Rocket to have ever played the game.

I'm so sorry

Really, watching Hakeem is something I'm extremely thankful for. I miss Olajuwon...a LOT.

So which Rocket makes the HOF next? Yao or Tracy? *ducks*

Mutombo should be a lock in 2013 if he retires now but will he go in as a Nugget?

Will Barkley go in next year as a Sixer or a Sun? A Suxer?

Garnett's game (or at least ability) is fairly similar, so I've always liked watching him too, but Olajuwon would (and did) eat his lunch.

With Wilt and Russell, the argument is always "look at their stats" (odd coming from me, eh iggy? ) or "respect the history of the game" or "they wouldn't have the reputation and stats they did if...". The thing is, how many of the people making those arguments have actually seen a significant amount of them playing? Highlight clips don't count. Take a look at your rosters from that era, and there was just an absolute dearth of big men. There would be a few 6'9" and 7'0" guys here and there, but they'd all weigh 210 and score 4ppg. If you're a true athlete at a good height, regardless of your absolute skill, you're going to destroy a guy who is only out there because he's tall (Keith Closs and Shawn Bradley, we're looking at you). Just another case of me wondering how good those guys really were... I know I can't say, I've never seen them play.

Really, there's obviously not many great big men playing right now either, but the ones that are out there, even if they aren't the least bit great, are definitely not 210lbs. I mean, the 61-62 Warriors only had 3 guys over 6'6", Wilt, Joe Ruklick, and Frank Radovich. I'd like to see what happened if you put a team with the two Colliers up against a team with the other two guys. I'd wager they both would have a better career high scoring set than 20|22 pts / 6.4|6.4 ppg.

p.s. I accidentally searched for Jason Collier instead of Jason Collins and was sent to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jason_Collier . Check out the bottom link on his wiki, that's just... weird ( http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cg ... d=12064468 ).

p.p.s. I always thought Dolph Schayes was supposed to have been GOOD!?!!? http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... ydo01.html I remember Worrell always saying "Danny's good, but he's not the player his his daddy was!" The dude shot over 40% ONE TIME (40.1%) for his career. Iverson would die if he saw this given how he gets knocked for his turrble percentages.