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YouTube Gold: Hakeem The Dream Plays For A Championship

And Patrick Ewing can’t come close to stopping him

By JD King
/ new
1994 NBA Finals Game 5: Houston Rockets vs. New York Knicks
NEW YORK - JUNE 17: Hakeem Olajuwon #34 of the Houston Rockets makes a move against Patrick Ewing #33 of the New York Knicks during Game Five of the NBA Finals played on June 17, 1994 at Madison Square Garden in New York, New York. 
Photo by Andrew D. Bernstein/NBAE via Getty Images

Basketball lately has skewed heavily towards smaller players since Golden State started winning big behind Steph Curry, Klay Thompson and Draymond Green. Ultimately though it’s a big man’s game and when Victor Wembanyama arrives, things may skew back to big men again.

Still, he’s not exactly a traditional big man and the ideal of what used to be called a center keeps changing. In the 1960’s and 70’s, most of the quality big men were traditional centers.

In the 80’s and ‘90’s, it changed a lot. Ralph Sampson, at 7-4, mused about playing guard. But no one changed the position in quite the way that Hakeem Olajuwon did.

Olajuwon was unbelievable. He was the quickest big man then and probably still is. He moved like a big cat and other centers simply couldn’t keep up.

In this clip from the 1994 Finals, Patrick Ewing at times matches Olajuwon, but as great as he was, he can’t stop Olajuwon - and Olawjuon defends him very well.

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