Dikembe Mutombo, Naismith Basketball Hall of Fame center and global ambassador for the NBA, died at the age of 58 of brain cancer, the connection announced on monday Born in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Mutombo was not only one of the most skilled international players in NBA history, but one of the greatest rim protectors the modern game has ever seen.
How else would a guy who averaged less than 10 points per game for his career make eight All-Star teams and end up in the Hall of Fame? To be fair, he was a slightly better scorer than that number would indicate during his prime, but his legacy as a player lies in his 3,289 career blocked shots, which ranks second all-time behind only the 3,830 blocks tallied by fellow players. legend Hakeem Olajuwon.
It was not the blocks, but the famous fingerwag celebration with which Mutombo became synonymous that distinguished him during his playing days and still, and still, identified him to the masses of multiple generations.
Mutombo first broke the streak in 1997 when he denied Clarence Weatherspoon on three straight free-throw attempts.
Countless players across many sports have adopted the finger shake and applied it to their particular business. It’s become something of a universal “not in my house” gesture, and for anyone over 40 to be safe, only one person comes to mind every time you see it.
“Whenever [someone does] the finger shake, nothing comes to mind but Dikembe,” Patrick Ewing once said. “Like when people stick their tongue out, you don’t even have to say [Michael Jordan’s] name You already know who they’re imitating.”
Speaking of Michael Jordan, one of the great pieces of behind-the-scenes footage came at the 1997 All-Star Game, where Mutombo directly told Jordan, one of the most vicious and artistic dunkers imaginable, that he had never dunked. on him before. Jordan kept coming back at him, and Mutombo just stood his ground and kept denying MJ. It was almost poetically perfect in its symbolism. But of course, Jordan, who doesn’t forget a single upset, got his post on Mutombo soon after and famously taunted the big man with his own flick of the finger.
Michael Jordan using your own gesture against you is the ultimate sign of respect. Indeed, Mutombo put himself in the line of fire by instigating the finger-wagging, as it only made some of the greatest athletes in the world want him even more. He wanted, as they say, all the smoke. And he extinguished almost all of it.
“Once he started swinging that finger, guys would catch on and really try to challenge him,” Shawn Kemp said Max Blau back in 2014. “He tried to get them to play their own game, which was [getting them to try] attack him to make it easier for him to block shots.”
Kemp’s SuperSonics were on the wrong end of Mutombo in one of the most memorable playoff upsets in 1994 when the Nuggets, a No. 8 seed, upset top-seeded Seattle in the first round. Mutombo amassed 31 blocks in five games in that series. He was a generational shot blocker whose impact on lives outside of basketball actually greatly outweighed his Hall of Fame career. He will be missed by many forever.
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