After several years of being passed by in the Most Valuable Player voting, Houston center Hakeem Ola-juwon was finally honored Tuesday. But not, he claims, until he stopped thinking about the award.
Olajuwon said he had given up plans of being named the league's top player. "After awhile, I gave up thinking of the award," he said Tuesday at a press conference in The Summit. "There were so many great players and it was all so political. So then I started thinking about winning a championship. That is the motivation for me."
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Meanwhile, the Jazz's Karl Malone finished far back in the balloting, with only 17 total points, tied with Seattle's Shawn Kemp for eighth place. He received no first, second or third-place votes and only three fourth-place votes.
But Malone said he wasn't upset with the voting results. "No," he said. "I'm just in Utah, that's all."
Nevertheless, Malone couldn't resist a smile when reminded he finished behind such players as Seattle guard Gary Payton. "Hakeem definitely deserves the MVP," he said. "But just like anything else, you can't run the world without politics."
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The criteria for winning the MVP can vary. Some voters feel it is the best player in the league, others feel it is the player who helps elevate his team the most. Critics often say it it is determined by the players in the high-visibility markets.
Malone said if he had a vote, he would probably pick Olajuwon as the MVP. "The MVP to me is when a guy puts his whole team on his shoulders and carries them to another level," Malone continued. "Hakeem has done that."
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As with Olajuwon, Malone claims to have given up coveting the MVP award long ago.
How long ago? "The year A.C. Green finished ahead of me and started on the All-Star team," said Malone, referring to the All-Star voting in 1990. "That's when I saw the light. Up until then, I thought those things were really important."
Malone went on to say the only type of trophy that truly gets him excited is the kind that gets mounted by a taxidermist. "It's a lot more important to me to think of that trophy elk or moose," he said.
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Olajuwon's teammates agree that Hakeem is truly a dream player. They say he is not only relentless, but he makes the other players better.
Beyond that, Olajuwon joins such all-time greats as Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Larry Bird and Magic Johnson.
Houston guard Kenny Smith said comparing Olajuwon to other greats in the past is "like apples, oranges, bananas - they're all fruit."
However, he went on to say that "in offensive terms, as a center, he's been the best, or you'd have to rank him No. 1 or 2 along with Wilt Chamberlain."
Smith continued, "Defensively, he's 1 or 2. A lot of players did a lot of things good, but I think he does a lot of things great."
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Perhaps one day they will make a movie of Olajuwon's life, from a childhood in Nigeria to his college days in Houston to the best player in the NBA. Houston coach Rudy Tomjanovich agrees it is an intriguing story.
"What a wonderful story. For a guy who comes to this country and hasn't played a bunch of organized basketball, and he becomes the best player in the league," said Tomjanovich.
Tomjanovich went on to call Olajuwon "right up there" with some of the best inside players ever, saying he'd played against Chamberlain and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar.
Though San Antonio's David Robinson drew considerable support - including a Sports Illustrated cover story on Robinson in midseason - Tomjanovich said the choice this year wasn't hard.
"When you look at the way the guy plays and how hard he plays," he said, "it's really an easy choice."
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Olajuwon says the chants of "M-V-P" coming from the crowd at The Summit Monday night were somewhat disconcerting.
"That puts a lot of pressure on you sometimes," he said. "Because when you're the MVP of the league, you're not supposed to miss free throws."
Olajuwon put in respectable numbers, making seven of nine free throws.
ADDENDUM: The Jazz had the second-lowest turnover average in the NBA this season (14.5). In the first half of Monday's game, they already had 12 turnovers . . . Olajuwon, when asked by a radio reporter what he meant by dedicating the MVP Award to world peace: "Well, uh, world peace." . . . Olajuwon was the only MVP candidate named on all 101 ballots.