NBA veteran JR Smith, who will play with the Los Angeles Lakers in the league’s upcoming restart, used his Twitter account Monday to come to the defense of legendary Houston Rockets center Hakeem Olajuwon.
Olajuwon ranked No. 2 overall on a list shown Monday on ESPN’s SportsCenter of the top foreign-born NBA players of all-time, with Dallas Mavericks forward Dirk Nowitzki in the top spot.
“The Dream,” however, won two championships to Nowitzki’s one. Nowitzki was also considered a defensive liability at times, whereas Olajuwon was a two-time NBA Defensive Player of the Year.
As such, Smith took to social media to dispute the ranking. Now 34 years old, Smith has played in the NBA since 2004, and his career overlapped significantly with that of Nowitzki (1998 to 2019).
For his 18-year career, Olajuwon averaged 21.8 points (51.2% FG), 11.1 rebounds, and 3.1 blocks per game. A 12-time All-Star, “The Dream” was a two-time champion and NBA Finals MVP; a two-time Defensive Player of the Year; and the league’s 1993-94 regular season MVP, which concluded with Houston’s first-ever championship in a major sports league.
A recent ESPN list ranked Olajuwon as the NBA’s No. 12 player of all-time, though some former players immediately said that was too low. Even so, it was still moderately higher than Nowitzki, who came in at No. 19.
Nowitzki played 21 NBA seasons with the Mavericks, averaging 20.7 points (38.0% on 3-pointers) and 7.5 rebounds in 33.8 minutes per game.
