[chron]Coaches recall Olajuwon's rise to stardom

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http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/sports/5982609.html

Hakeem's progress was steady
Coaches enjoy recalling how Olajuwon went from raw recruit to Hall of Famer
By FRAN BLINEBURY Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle
Sept. 3, 2008, 11:23PM




Guy V. Lewis admits he was skeptical.

“After all,” he said, “how many times do you get a phone call from somebody in Africa saying he’s got a 7-footer who is ready to come to your school and change your team?”

Then the taxi pulled up in front of the athletic building at the University of Houston and a 17-year-old Hakeem Olajuwon unfolded his long, lean body from out of the backseat.

“When I saw him play on that first afternoon, I thought we could make something out of him,” Lewis said. “But it did take two years of me working with Hakeem on the power step every single day. One time in practice, I blew the whistle and stopped everything when he finally did the power step. I called the coaches over. 'Did you guys see what I’m seeing? If he can do that, we’re going places.’ ”

And they went to three consecutive Final Fours, losing twice in the NCAA championship game.

“I can’t really say that it surprises me that Hakeem wound up in the Hall of Fame,” Lewis said. “Because everything he did — blocked shots, dunking, the spin moves — had Hall of Fame written all over it.

“It does make me proud to see him there. I coached a lot of guys, but most of them were proven products. This was a guy who had played three months of basketball when he came to us. He was 17 years old. But he was coachable. He always tried and tried.

“When the pro scouts were coming to me, they’d ask me if I thought he’d keep improving over the next couple of years. I told them, 'Hell, he’ll still be improving seven, eight, nine years into the NBA.’ And he did.”

Olajuwon was almost the finished product by the time Rudy Tomjanovich was named Rockets coach in 1992.

“At the end, when we moved up to the championship level, he added that ability to find the open man,” Tomjanovich said. “Really, that is part of what was so special about Dream. He always kept growing as a player.

“I remember scouting him when he was just coming out of college and I was starting as a coach. People saw the defense, the blocked shots and those raw dunks. But nobody saw all of the other stuff that would come out of him. You think about the footwork, all those moves, the ability that he had to score from just about any angle all while still playing defense and that’s what made Hakeem an MVP.

“He helped make my career. With no Hakeem, there’s no Rudy T as a coach. No heart-of-a-champion stuff. I’d have been a one-year-and-out guy.
Sinking the Admiral

“I remember standing on the sidelines in San Antonio (in 1995) on the night they gave David Robinson the MVP trophy that should have been his before that playoff game. I remember looking over at Hakeem and his face was so calm. No expression. I remember thinking, 'I wonder what Dream’s gonna do.’ Well, we know what he did. He destroyed Robinson. And David was a great player. That was the peak of all of Dream’s greatness.”

Bill Fitch was Olajuwon’s first pro coach, the one who saw all of the potential and, through the years, could see all of the progress.

“Nobody ever talks about where he started from,” Fitch said. “He was not anywhere near a finished product coming out of college. If you look at him on a chart of progress, it was a steady diet.

“We lived through those early days when he was the proverbial black hole on offense. You threw the ball in and it never came out. He’d say, 'Why should I pass to somebody who shoots 33 percent when I make more than 50 percent?’ You know, from a logical standpoint, he was right for that time. But over the years he learned and Rudy got it to click in his mind and that’s when they won championships.”
Picked ahead of Jordan

Fitch took the phone call from legendary North Carolina coach Dean Smith before the 1984 draft, asking how the Rockets could possibly pass up Michael Jordan with the No. 1 pick.

“I told him that the people of Houston would burn our houses down if we didn’t take Dream,” Fitch said. “And we also needed a big man who was ready to play right away.

“You can look back now and ask, 'What if?’ But I look at Dream and what he became, how hard he played, how far he went and I don’t think it was the wrong choice.

“I coached (Larry) Bird in Boston and Dream in Houston and I’ll tell you this: Give me Dream and Bird and any other three guys who ever picked up a paycheck in the NBA and I’ll play anybody. Anywhere. Anytime.”

fran.blinebury@chron.com