Hakeem Olajuwon

Lagos roots

Hakeem Olajuwon was born Akeem Olajuwon on 21 January 1963 in Lagos, the third of six children of Salim and Abike Olajuwon, Yoruba parents who ran a cement business. He grew up speaking Yoruba, English and French, and was raised in a Muslim home that shaped the rest of his life.

Basketball came late. As a boy he kept goal for his football teams and played team handball, sports that trained the footwork and timing later famous as the “Dream Shake”. He only picked up a basketball at 15, when a schoolmate asked the coach at Muslim Teachers College to add the tall youngster to the team for the All-Nigeria Teachers Sports Festival in Sokoto. By 1980 he was playing for Nigeria’s junior team.

From Lagos to Houston

In 1980 the 17-year-old Olajuwon was noticed at a workout in Lagos by Chris Pond, an American coaching in Africa, who alerted Guy Lewis at the University of Houston. He arrived in Texas in October 1980 and, after a redshirt year, became the centre of the famous “Phi Slama Jama” team alongside Clyde Drexler.

Houston reached three straight NCAA Final Fours (1982, 1983 and 1984). Olajuwon was named Final Four Most Outstanding Player in 1983 and, in 1984, a consensus first-team All-American who led the nation in rebounds and blocks.

NBA career

The Houston Rockets made him the No. 1 pick of the 1984 NBA Draft, ahead of Michael Jordan. Over 17 seasons in Houston and one in Toronto he became one of the most complete centres the game has seen: a scorer with unstoppable footwork, a rebounder and the most prolific shot-blocker in league history.

The 1993/94 season was historic. He became the first foreign-born NBA MVP, won Defensive Player of the Year and led the Rockets to the title as Finals MVP. A year later he did it again, sweeping Orlando to win back-to-back championships and a second Finals MVP. On 29 March 1990 he recorded a rare quadruple-double: 18 points, 16 rebounds, 10 assists and 11 blocks.

Career statistics

Honours

• NBA champion1994, 1995
• NBA Finals MVP1994, 1995
• NBA Most Valuable Player1994 (first foreign-born winner)
• Defensive Player of the Year1993, 1994
• NBA All-Star12 times (1985 to 1990, 1992 to 1997)
• All-NBA12 times (6 First Team)
• All-Defensive9 times (5 First Team)
• NBA all-time blocks leader3,830 career blocks
• Olympic goldAtlanta 1996, with the USA
• NCAA Final Four Most Outstanding Player1983
• NBA anniversary teams50 Greatest (1996) and 75th Anniversary (2021)
• Jersey retiredNo. 34, Houston Rockets and University of Houston

Olympic gold and citizenship

Olajuwon became a US citizen on 2 April 1993 and won Olympic gold with the USA at Atlanta 1996, the same Games at which Nigeria won the men’s football tournament and Chioma Ajunwa won long jump gold.

Legacy and links with Nigeria

He was inducted into the Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame in 2008 and the FIBA Hall of Fame in 2016, and was named to the NBA’s 50th and 75th anniversary teams. The Rockets and the University of Houston both retired his No. 34.

Olajuwon has never forgotten Lagos. He returned to Nigeria as part of the United States delegation at the presidential inauguration in Abuja on 29 May 2015, played for Team Africa at the 2015 NBA Africa Game, and remains the example every young Nigerian centre is measured against. His story is told in his autobiography, Living the Dream (1996).