Jordan or no Jordan, Olajuwon was great
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Barry Gossage/Getty Images
With moves like this, Hakeem Olajuwon was unstoppable at times during his career.
Watching Vijay Singh snatch another PGA Tour victory in Tiger Woods' absence was a fitting way to start a week that ends with Hakeem Olajuwon's enshrinement in the Basketball Hall of Fame. Singh is the closest thing any other sport has to Olajuwon, the man who best took advantage of some down time by The Man.
From 1990 to 1997, every time Michael Jordan showed up for training camp, he wound up raising the Larry O'Brien trophy over his head at the end of the season. But the two times he didn't, Olajuwon swooped into the void. That's how Olajuwon earned the highest accolade you can give him, a tag much greater than "12-time All-Star" or "franchise's all-time scoring and rebounding leader." All that needs to be said for his career is this: The Houston Rockets don't have to apologize for taking him ahead of Jordan in the 1984 draft. Olajuwon won two championships and a Most Valuable Player award. It's everything you could ask for from a No. 1 overall pick, and he delivered.
To anticipate or envy Jordan's career and what it meant to the Bulls would be excessive. Don't be jealous of the guy driving the Ferrari in the next lane; just be glad you aren't riding the bus.
Olajuwon gave the city of Houston its first big league championship and granted the Rockets access to the most exclusive club in major pro sports. Since Olajuwon entered the league in 1984, only seven teams have won the NBA championship. In that time span there have been 16 World Series champions, 13 Super Bowl winners and 12 Stanley Cup champions.
The only question is, do we devalue Olajuwon's championships and MVP award because they came while Jordan missed one entire season and all but 17 games of the next during his first retirement? Not at all.
This is where Singh comes in. You'll notice that his three major victories -- the 1998 and 2004 PGA Championships and the 2000 Masters -- came when Tiger was retooling his swing and going through his two longest major droughts. So what does that make Singh? A three-time major champion. No asterisk affixed, no questions asked. And now that Woods is out after knee surgery, Singh is zeroing in on the funky FedEx Cup. It's an open range out there, but you don't see Phil Mickelson or Sergio Garcia padding their win totals.
The further we get from the events, the less we care about how they were won. Nearly a quarter century later, Mary Lou Retton is still an Olympic hero even though her 1984 gymnastics gold medal came amid an Eastern Bloc boycott, with nary a Nadia or Svetlana in sight.
The same goes for Olajuwon. They still held the NBA Finals in '94 and '95, with or without Jordan. The league didn't come to a halt. (For what it's worth, Olajuwon's 1995 team swept the Orlando Magic squad that took out Jordan and the Bulls).
There's a whole generation of players who had the misfortune of coming of age at the same time as Jordan. It was like hoping to win a Grammy the year "Thriller" came out. Jordan is personally responsible for denying championship rings to half the Dream Team. Charles Barkley, Patrick Ewing, Karl Malone, Chris Mullin, John Stockton, Christian Laettner ... they all suffered at least one playoff loss at Jordan's hands.
But they all had an equal opportunity when Jordan was gone, and Olajuwon was the only won to cash in. He got his first ring at Ewing's expense, which makes Ewing's inclusion in this 2008 Hall of Fame class a little bit cruel. Ewing is the opposite of Olajuwon. He's the guy tormented the most and longest by Jordan, starting with the jumper that beat Georgetown and launched the Jordan legend in the 1982 NCAA championship game, and continuing through five NBA playoff meetings, all won by Jordan. (In the ultimate sign of can't-beat-'em-join-'em, Ewing wound up as an assistant coach with the Washington Wizards in Jordan's last year there and often walked around clad head-to-toe in Brand Jordan gear).
At some point during this weekend's ceremonies, Ewing will have to flash back to 1994. With Jordan finally out of the way, off playing Double-A baseball, Ewing had a clear shot at that elusive ring ... until Olajuwon blocked it. Olajuwon outscored Ewing 189-133 and outshot him 50 percent to 36 percent in a seven-game NBA Finals.
Ewing would never get as close to a championship as he did in that Game 7 defeat. It came just a couple of weeks after his greatest moment, when he followed up a missed shot by John Starks to send the Knicks past the Indiana Pacers and into the NBA Finals. Against Houston, there were just too many Starks misses, 16 of them in that last game, and not enough Ewing could do about it. Certainly not enough to overcome Olajuwon, the MVP of that series (and the next year's NBA Finals as well, after he thoroughly dismantled David Robinson in the conference finals).
Olajuwon distanced himself from his center contemporaries and put more hardware on the shelf than either Ewing or Robinson. More importantly, he separated himself from Jordan, emerging from the often-smothering silhouette that often blanketed the league. Jordan's collection is larger, but he has none of the most important items (rings, MVP awards or Olympic gold medals) that Olajuwon does not have as well.
The only missing element is an answer to what would have happened if they had met head-to-head in the NBA Finals. While that's something we want to know, Olajuwon doesn't need it. He has every bit of validation he needs.
J.A. Adande joined ESPN.com as an NBA columnist in August 2007 after 10 years with the Los Angeles Times. Click here to e-mail J.A.
原文链接：http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/columns/story?columnist=adande_ja&page=olajuwon-080905
大梦的光辉不因神的存在而黯淡 维杰.辛格（Vijay singh）在老虎伍兹缺席的情况下又夺取了一个PGA巡回赛的冠军，对于这个星期来说，这是一个再好不过的开端，因为在周末，哈基姆.奥拉朱旺将进入篮 球名人堂的圣殿。辛格是在其他运动中最接近奥拉朱旺的人，他们都把握住了竞争对手处于低潮的时期。
Jordan or no Jordan, Olajuwon was great
从 1990到1997，每当迈克尔乔丹在季前训练营出现，他都会在赛季末将拉里奥布莱恩杯高高举过头顶。然而有两次他缺席了，奥拉朱旺敏锐的出现并抓住了这 段空隙，成就了自己的辉煌。这就是奥拉朱旺赢得无数最高赞誉的方式，一个比12次全明星或集得分和篮板一体的特权球员更耀眼的标签。如果要对他的职业生涯 进行总结，可以说：休斯顿火箭队不需要因为他们在1984年选秀时在乔丹前摘走奥拉朱旺而感到遗憾。他赢得了2次总冠军和一个最有价值球员，你还能能对一 个状元秀有更多的要求吗？他全都做到了。
去羡慕乔丹的职业生涯和他对公牛队的意义好比是吃着碗里的还盯着锅里不放.没有必要去嫉妒那个在隔壁车道开法拉利的家伙，你应该为自己不需要挤公车而感到高兴。
奥拉朱旺给休斯顿带来了第一个大联盟的冠军并保证了火箭队进入这个高等级职业比赛的冠军俱乐部. 而自奥拉朱旺1984年进入联盟以来，只有7支球队获得过NBA总冠军。在那个时期总共产生的世界职业棒球大赛冠军有16个，超级碗13个，斯坦利杯得主是12个。
然而，我们是否因为乔丹第一次退役时缺席的一个赛季外加17场的比赛而低估了奥拉朱旺的冠军和MVP头衔？不，这是完全错误的。
其 实辛格也是类似的，他取得三个主要的成就（1998和2004年PGA冠军和2000年大师杯冠军）时，伍兹在调整自己的挥杆动作并处于其职业第二长的低 谷。伍兹的低迷给辛格带来了什么？3个无可争议的宝贵冠军。如今伍兹已经从脚踝手术中恢复，辛格也将目标对准了充满激情的联邦快递杯。机遇属于每一个人， 但是你并没有看到Phil Mickelson或Sergio Garcia因此增加了自己的胜场。（前述两人也为高尔夫球选手）
当 你对这些事件的体会越深入，就越会觉得他们是怎么赢的并不重要。大约是25年前，Mary Lou Retton在1984年获得奥运体操金牌，当时东方集团国家（Eastern Bloc）抵制奥运造成了Nadia（罗马尼亚体操运动员）和Svetlana（白俄罗斯体操运动员）两位高手的缺席，但是她仍然无愧于奥运英雄的称号。
同样的情况适用于奥拉朱旺。无论有还是没有乔丹，NBA94和95年总决赛仍然开战，联盟并没有因此而停摆。更值得一提的是奥拉朱旺在1995年总决赛带队4场横扫奥兰多魔术队，而正是这支魔术，战胜了乔丹和公牛并成为东部冠军。
有 整整一代的球员都因和乔丹身处同一个时代而深感不幸。就像在《thriller》这张专辑（迈克尔.杰克逊）出现的那年你期望获得格莱美一样。乔丹几乎导 致了大半的梦之队成员失去了获得总冠军的机会。查尔斯.巴克利，帕特里克.尤因，卡尔.马龙，克里斯.穆林，约翰.斯托克顿，克里斯汀.莱特纳...他们 在季后赛中都至少有一次败在乔丹手下。
但是当乔丹不在了，他们都有平等的去争夺总冠军的时 候，只有奥拉朱旺抓住了机会。他从尤因手中抢来了他的第一枚戒指，这导致了尤因进入2008名人堂显得多少有些残酷。尤因是奥拉朱旺的对手，他是被乔丹折 磨最久最严重的人，从被1982年NCAA冠军赛上点燃乔丹传奇生涯的那个跳投击败的乔治亚城大学，到5次连续的季后赛止步于乔丹之手。(有人说既然无法 击败对手，那就和他做队友。尤因在乔丹的最后一年比赛时正是在做奇才队的助教，还经常穿着全套的乔丹装备走来走去)。
在 这个周末名人堂典礼的某些时刻，尤因一定会追忆起1994. 那时乔丹终于离开篮球，加入了AA级棒球比赛的行列，他的戒指之梦似乎近在眼前 ... 直到奥拉朱旺将其破灭。在7场总决赛的对抗中，奥拉朱旺完全占据了上风，总得分189对133,投篮命中率50%对36%。
那 鏖战7场的落败是尤因最接近总冠军的时刻。之前当他补中一个约翰.斯塔克斯的射篮击败步行者并将尼克斯送进总决赛时，也许只要再过两周，他就能迎来他最伟 大的时刻。可是在对休斯顿得比赛中，斯塔克斯投失了太多的球，在最后一场有16个之多，而尤因却没有能够再一一补中它们。实际上他是受制于奥拉朱旺，这个 整个系列赛的最有价值球员（同时他也是下一年的总决赛最有价值球员，在西部决赛完全统治了大卫罗宾逊）。
奥拉朱旺把同时代的中锋甩在了身后，获得比尤因和罗宾逊更多的荣誉。更重要的是，他将自己和乔丹分离开来，从那个令人窒息的遮蔽着整个联盟的大手中脱颖而出。乔丹的荣誉很多，但是他所有最重要的荣誉中（总冠军戒指，MVP，奥运金牌）没有一项是奥拉朱旺没有的。
如果乔丹和奥拉朱旺在NBA总决赛上相遇，会是怎样的结果？这个问题已经永远也无法解答。其实这只是我们的设想，奥拉朱旺对此完全不必在意。因为他已经在所有需要的证明自己的方面作出了表率。
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原文标题： Jordan or no Jordan, Olajuwon was great
原文链接：http://sports.espn.go.com/nba/columns/story?columnist=adande_ja&page=olajuwon-080905
原文作者: J.A. Adande
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