Hakeem Olajuwon

The 7 foot Nigerian giant migrated from his home country, Nigeria to the University of Houston. He initially started playing basketball for Houston Rockets and Toronto Raptors.

It was him who led Rockets to a consecutive championship in 1996 and 1995 and this earned him a great name in Basketball. In 1993-94 he was named as NBA MVP, Defensive Player of the Year.

In his rookie year, Hakeem finished second after Jordan for the Rookie of the Year Balloting and averaged 20.6 points along with 11.9 rebounds. While he was with Rockets, Hakeem ranked fourth in rebounding and second in blocked shots with a score of 2.68 per game.

In the year 1985, he played in the NBA All-Star Game and was titled to the All-Star Rookie Team as well as the NBA All-Defensive Second Team.

He was placed among the league leaders in scoring, blocked shots, rebounding and steals. He won many titles for different skill sets. In 1989, he was crowned as the first player to finish among the league’s top 10 in rebounding, scoring, steals and blocked shots for 2 consecutive seasons.

Career Highlights

• Hakeem was selected as one of the 50 Greatest Players in NBA History in 1996.
• He is one of 8 players in NBA’s History to boast about 20,000 points and 12,000 rebounds in his career.
• He is also known as NBA’s all-time leader with 3,830 blocked shots.
• He was named as NBA MVP in the year 1994 and NBA Defensive Player of the Year in 1992-93 and 1993-94.