Hakeem Olajuwon: the Dream

Hakeem Olajuwon grew up in Lagos, Nigeria, and came to basketball late, as a teenager, after playing football as a goalkeeper. That background mattered: the balance, agility and quick feet he had built between the posts translated into the most graceful footwork the center position had ever seen. He arrived at the University of Houston raw and left a star, part of the celebrated Phi Slama Jama teams, and entered the NBA as a project who would quickly become one of its defining forces.

In the low post Olajuwon was a magician. His signature move, the Dream Shake, was a dizzying sequence of fakes, pivots and spins that left defenders lunging at empty air before he rose for a clean shot. It looked less like a big man's game than a dancer's, and it came straight from his years as a goalkeeper. No center moved with such fluid deception, and even the greatest defenders of his era admitted they simply could not read where he was going next.

Olajuwon carried the Houston Rockets to consecutive championships in 1994 and 1995, the crowning achievement of his career. In 1994 he produced one of the great individual seasons in league history, winning the Most Valuable Player award, the Defensive Player of the Year award and the Finals MVP in the same year — a treble almost no one else has ever managed. Against the biggest names of a golden era, he was, when it mattered most, the best player on the floor.

What set Olajuwon apart was that he dominated equally at both ends. He remains the NBA's all-time leader in blocked shots, a defensive giant who protected the rim while scoring with surgical skill in the post. Late in his career he was sought out by younger stars who travelled to learn his footwork, a rare tribute from one generation to another. He is remembered as perhaps the most technically complete center the game has produced — the Dream, in full.