YouTube Gold: The Dream Shake

Basketball has evolved immensely in the last couple of decades. The idea of positionless basketball has taken hold and while the idea is fundamentally in keeping with the evolution of the game, you can count on this: when the next great big man comes along, he’ll be the top draft pick and the game will change again.

And if you want a hint for where things might go, you can look back to Hakeem Olajuwon.

When Hakeem came to Houston from Nigeria, he had barely started to play the game. His potential was tantalizing at the very beginning and he more than lived up to it.

When you see how mobile he was, how quick he was, how he completely baffled truly great big men like Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Patrick Ewing, David Robinson and Shaquille O’Neal, it’s amazing. The dream shake was unbelievable - how did a man his size move that quickly?

Bonus - if you look around the :50 second mark, you’ll see former Duke great Mike Gminski taking his share of abuse.