(Chronicle) Dream school is in session.

FROM ONE BIG MAN TO ANOTHER
Dream school is in session

One season into his NBA career, Emeka Okafor wants to elevate his game. Who better to help him than Hakeem Olajuwon?

By FRAN BLINEBURY
Copyright 2005 Houston Chronicle

The white SUV pulls smoothly into a parking spot, the driver's door swings open, and out pops a familiar figure with a brown leather Spalding tucked comfortably under his left arm.


"I always keep a ball in the car," Hakeem Olajuwon said. "You never know."

It is a little before 8 a.m. on another of those summer mornings that wrap you in the kind of suffocating hug you used to get from that one overbearing aunt, and Olajuwon has come to warmly embrace a new role.

Teacher.

He has been back in town since June, separated from his wife and children in Jordan, taking care of business matters, visiting with longtime friends and staying in shape with sessions of pickup games and individual workouts at assorted sites such as here at the Lifetime Fitness club in Sugar Land, at Second Baptist Church, and even one trip to revisit his Houston hoop roots at Fonde Rec Center.

Olajuwon, 42 and more than three years removed from his last NBA game, plays to keep in shape, and it's working, as evidenced by the washboard stomach and the muscled arms that extend from his sleeveless shirt.

Emeka Okafor, 22, is the former College Player of the Year at the University of Connecticut, where he led the Huskies to the 2004 NCAA championship. He was named the NBA Rookie of the Year last season with the expansion Charlotte Bobcats, averaging 15.1 points and 10.9 rebounds as the No. 2 overall selection in the draft, one of the brightest young lights in a league full of promise.

For the next two hours, they are professor and pupil, master and apprentice, running through drills, working on jump hooks and spin dribbles, and breaking down individual moves with the precision of NASA engineers. Call it a fantasy camp for a Dream and a dreamer.

Dance steps
When Olajuwon takes the ball on the left side of the basket and whirls into the lane, he flows like water going downstream.

When Okafor, 6-10, makes his first attempt at the same move, it is like watching a colt take his first wobbly steps.

"It's confusing at first," Okafor said. "He's been doing it all for so long. He makes it look so smooth and easy. But when you try to mimic or copy it, it's like you have two left feet."

Which is, of course, how most of the defenders felt trying to guard Olajuwon through all of those 18 years in the NBA, expecting him to go one way and then frozen as he went the other.

"My background playing soccer gave me a natural advantage over many of the American-born players," Olajuwon said. "I had better footwork than them when I started playing basketball, and I think I always stayed ahead.

"But I think it is something that can be taught, at least to a point. To play the big man's game — especially the way the game is moving these days, with offenses spreading out — you need good footwork, good mobility. I just don't think enough of them are working on it.

"Give Emeka credit. He wants to know. He has a very strong game. He has the ability, the talent to do it all. But his feet are out of position. He has to get the mechanics down, learn how to make the moves I made."

All of those seasons of all of those spins and whirls and scoops and head fakes and jab steps and tying helpless defenders into pretzel knots leaves you wondering. Could Mozart have created more prodigies by "giving" them his ear? Could a young poet study iambic pentameter and write like Shakespeare?

"Basketball is in my blood," Olajuwon said. "It is my obligation to try."

Said Okafor: "He's the best I've ever seen, so I'm going to soak up anything I can."

There is a kinship that seems natural. Okafor, born and raised in Houston and a former star at Bellaire High, is the first-generation American son of a Nigerian immigrant who came to the United States in 1976 and closely followed the exploits of his athletic countryman from Lagos.

"Oh yes, I always followed Hakeem from the time he came to Houston," Pius Okafor said. "He was our hero, and it gave us great pride to watch him grow here and succeed.

"I didn't know that my son would get to be this caliber player. When he began to play basketball, I just wanted him to have fun. I never thought about the NBA. But now that he's here, this is special. He's learning from the best in the business."

Growing up in the 1990s in Houston, a young big man couldn't help but be drawn as a fan to the hub of two NBA championship teams.

"Of course I was a Rockets fan," Emeka Okafor said. "Both of us Nigerian. Both of us big men. The connection was there. I loved watching those teams during the championship years. But the truth is, at that time, I was probably more interested in growing up to become an Oiler more than a Rocket.

"One of my early memories of him is going to a game where one of my friends gave me an Hakeem Olajuwon card and asked me to get it signed. So I got to The Summit, and I walked down to the court, and he was right there. I'm looking at him and looking at him, and I want to say something, but I can't. I just went back to my seat, and I never met him until I walked into this gym. It's pretty amazing that I'm working out with him, learning from him."

Breaking it down
Olajuwon is diligent, meticulous and patient with his explanations and demonstrations, starting the first day with basic moves in the paint and adding options that are often subtle but devastatingly effective. When you watch the moves executed slowly, broken down, you realize how numerous and complex they are. It's like seeing the individual wind gusts inside a twister.

"At first, it's overwhelming," Okafor said. "And he's forty-something. I can only imagine how quick it looked in person in his heyday."

Olajuwon grins.

"Moses (Malone) taught me with pickup games at Fonde," he said. "But I think I can show the next generation better by letting them understand how I did it. I was always using one move to build to the next.

"What I'm trying to do with Emeka is show him the secrets of my moves. Nothing secret, really — just fundamentals and then options. Making the defense guess wrong. As a big man, I never wanted to try to go through another big man or over him. That's too hard. It's about balance, speed, agility. The idea is to go around, find the open space, find the easiest way to the basket Guards and forwards use those moves all the time. I just wanted to use them as a big man."

They are the moves that befuddled Shaquille O'Neal in the 1995 NBA Finals when the Rockets swept the Magic.

They are the moves O'Neal has studied every year since, incorporating into his game.

"I remember at the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta, Shaq always wanted me to show him steps over and over," Olajuwon said, chuckling. "He got me out on the court a few years ago when he was in L.A. and wanted to see them again.

"When I watch NBA games now on TV, what I see the most are opportunities for the big men that they are not taking advantage of. That's what I told Tim Duncan when I saw him this year at the Finals in San Antonio. When you go into the lane and they take away the jump hook, just reverse pivot. The baseline is there."

Europe takes back seat
Olajuwon will tell those same things to Yao Ming if their schedules ever mesh and they meet up in Houston. Olajuwon has not avoided helping the Rockets. Their big men simply were not in town over the summer.

Then again, neither was Okafor when the telephone rang.

"I was in Europe when I got a call from a friend who had worked out a couple of days here in town with Hakeem," Okafor said. "My friend said, 'Hey, man, Hakeem's here and really helping and showing me some things. If you can come down here for at least a week and work out with him, it would be well worth your while.'

"I didn't waste any time. If Hakeem had the time for me, I was going to get to him."

Olajuwon is flattered and willing and more than capable. He found that breaking down his moves, analyzing and re-creating them for young players, had tightened his fundamentals and made him a better player in occasional pickup games.

"You better come guard me with two or three players," he said with a laugh. "Because I can still do it. But really, what this proves is that if I can use those moves at my age and get open, young players in the NBA can take their game to another level. It's all in the feet. But it takes more than watching."

One-on-one, they work on the jump hook in the post. Okafor struggles, and the ball bounces off the front rim. Olajuwon smoothly drops his shots over the defense — eight, nine, 10 in a row.

Okafor is studying, asking questions, repeating the drills, soaking in the instruction.

"Stay lower on the spin dribble."

"Elevate and extend your arm on the jump hook."

"Take the baseline when it's open."

He's taking small steps. It's just the start of a long journey.

"I had a decent first year," Okafor said. "But I've got so much to learn. Offense, defense, everything. I made a lot of mistakes. My understanding of the game is not anywhere near where it needs to be.

"It's going to take some time. In a game, you think faster. Everything's a little bit quicker. You have to go on muscle memory. Hakeem's telling me to just do it so many times until I'm comfortable. You don't think. You just do it."

One morning Okafor has a friend record the session with a video camera. Every morning there are more lessons.

Near the end of two hours, Olajuwon takes the ball on the right side of the basket, wheels into the lane and finds his path blocked by Okafor. He spins back to the baseline, another hand in his face. First one, then two, then three head fakes and a jab step make Okafor leave his feet, and Olajuwon drops in a layup and then falls to the floor laughing.

"Damn!" Okafor said. "Did you see it? That was the old Dream."

And a young dreamer, together on a hot summer morning.

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This is a great article and whats even more interesting is Hakeem's willingness to teach those who are willing to learn. We need to get Yao down here right now!