DENVER— Hakeem Olajuwon is going to sit down for lunch Wednesday with Leslie Alexander, the one who signs the paychecks that will add up to $16.5 million for the Houston Rockets future Hall of Fame center this season. In spite of everything you may have read or heard about Olajuwon's unhappiness with his role on the Rockets as they transition from a veteran, post-oriented team to a young, guard-dominated team, Olajuwon is not going to ask Alexander to waive him so he can sign with another team. Call that one a bad dream. Pun intended. Here is what you need to know about what we now have to call the Olajuwon "situation": Olajuwon believes he remains capable of playing as well as, or better than, most of the centers in the NBA. Rockets coach Rudy Tomjanovich does not. Olajuwon has been the focus of the Rockets offense so long, he is incapable of accepting that the time has come for someone else, someone younger, someone named Steve Francis, to be the focus now. Tomjanovich not only accepts the fact, he insists that Francis will be his team's go-to player. Olajuwon, who is in the final year of his Rockets contract, would not mind being traded, and has made this fact known to Tomjanovich and general manager Carroll Dawson. Because he makes $16.5 million, trading Olajuwon is nearly impossible, given the fact the Rockets refuse to tie themselves into salary-cap knots in the process. The Rockets still need Olajuwon if they want to make a run at returning to the Western Conference playoffs. Here is what I believe will come out of Wednesday's meeting between Olajuwon and Alexander: Olajuwon will tell Alexander how badly his feelings have been hurt by having to play a secondary role this season and how he believes he remains capable of being some teams primary offensive player. Alexander will tell Olajuwon how much the Rockets appreciate everything Olajuwon has done for the organization for 17 seasons and how badly he would feel if Olajuwon played for any other team. Olajuwon won't even mention the possibility of the Rockets waiving him and Alexander will gently remind Olajuwon how difficult trading him would be, for many reasons. Then, Alexander will pick up the tab and Olajuwon will suit up for Wednesday night's game against the Philadelphia 76ers, and for the rest of the Rockets games this season, too, as long as he stays healthy. The irony of the Olajuwon situation is the fact few coaches in the NBA can relate more to the difficulty faced by a player in the twilight of a career having to adjust to a new role. When Tomjanovich was in his final season with the Rockets — he never played for anyone but the Rockets and has been with the organization for his entire NBA life — he not only lost his starting job, but virtually all of his playing time. In a season in which the Rockets went all the way to the NBA Finals, Tomjanovich watched it all from the end of the bench. Del Harris was in his first head coaching job in the NBA, and he was committed to a new, big lineup that featured Billy "The Whopper" Paultz and Moses Malone. To this day, you can hear the hurt in Tomjanovich's voice as he talks about the tough transition to the end of the bench. "It was real tough for me," Tomjanovich said before his Dream-less Rockets took the Pepsi Center court for a game against the Nuggets, "because we went to The Finals. I'd waited all that time to go to The Finals, and Del, who was the coach, said to me, 'Hey, I'm committed to this other lineup.' "And he even told me he wasn't going to change it and told me I wasn't even in the rotation. That was hard to take. But I looked at the result and we really did a good job. (The fact) that I wasn't a part of it was really, really tough to take." Others may have questioned Tomjanovich's ability to contribute that season. He knew otherwise. "I knew I could still do things," he said. "No question. But I was out of the rotation completely. I was a last-second, get-in-and-fire-a-bomb-up guy." So Tomjanovich can relate to Olajuwon's pain. There is, he said, a huge difference. "Hakeem is playing," Tomjanovich said. "He's part of the rotation and has to do with the outcome of the game. "Mine was sit and watch." On the opposite bench from Tomjanovich Tuesday, was yet another coach who understands how troubling it is for a great player to accept a lesser role. In Dan Issel's final season, the Nuggets had just made a blockbuster trade with Portland that brought Fat Lever, Calvin Natt and defensive-minded center Wayne Cooper to Denver. Coach Doug Moe wanted Cooper to start and Issel to come off the bench. That went over like a plow horse in the Kentucky Derby, to use a comparison Issel himself might appreciate. "What I couldn't accept," Issel said, "was the fact I didn't think I'd done anything to lose my job, but it had been taken away from me. "There's just no way to be objective about it when you've played one way that long." Olajuwon has been playing one way — with power, precision and grace — for so long in Houston that he can't objectify his team's having made a transition that has left him just a role player. But he has been a Houstonian for more than 20 years — playing his college ball for the University of Houston's great Phi Slamma Jamma teams and every day of his pro career for the Rockets. It is unthinkable that he would play anywhere else. In his heart, I think Olajuwon knows it as well as the Rockets. Senior writer Mike Monroe covers the NBA for FOXSports.com. Send your comments to mmonroe@foxsports.com. http://foxsports.com/columns/stories/bk0123monroe1.sml ------------------ If you are a positive thinking person but yet you listen to country music, isn't that odd?
