NBA

Inside Dikembe Mutombo’s legacy: NBA legend was the best defender of his era and an all-time humanitarian

The NBA lost one of its all-time greats with the passing of Dikembe Mutombo.

The league announced Monday that Mutombo died at the age of 58 after a battle with cancer. His battle dates back to 2022 when the NBA shared that he underwent treatment for a brain tumor.

Mutombo’s Hall of Fame playing career goes much further than his eight All-Star appearances, three All-NBA and six All-Defensive selections, and record-tying four Defensive Player of the Year awards. He will be remembered as one of the best big men in league history, along with much more than just a basketball player. 

For as many points, rebounds and blocks as Mutombo recorded in his career, his greatest impact was felt off the court.

MORE: NBA world mourns loss of Hall of Famer Dikembe Mutombo

Inside Dikembe Mutombo’s legacy

Dikembe Mutombo’s remarkable playing career

Mutombo’s path to the Hall of Fame was one of the most unexpected of any of its members. He came to Georgetown on a USAID scholarship, hoping to study to become a doctor. Coach John Thompson persuaded him to join the basketball team, and he was so promising at the college level that he was drafted fourth by the Nuggets.

Mutombo spent his first five seasons in Denver, joining a 20-win team and leading them to the playoffs. His most iconic moment came in 1994 when the Nuggets became the first No. 8 seed in history to eliminate a No. 1 seed.

That led to one of the best photos in NBA history, of an exuberant Mutombo clutching the ball on the ground. 

Mutombo was amazing during that playoff run, averaging an astounding 5.8 blocks per game. The next season, he won his first of a record four Defensive Player of the Year awards.

Mutombo was the best shot blocker of his era and perhaps of all time, immortalizing the finger wag as one of the coolest NBA celebrations. Look no further than his four blocks in a single possession as evidence of how dominant he was on that end of the floor. 

His four DPOY awards amazingly came under six different coaches, proving that he could play in any type of system. He remains the oldest player to ever win the award, with his last one coming at age 34 in 2001. 

Mutombo opened the door for a number of future NBA stars. Upon learning of his death, Serge Ibaka tweeted that Mutombo “paved the way for me and many Congolese and African youth.”

“It’s a sad day, especially for us Africans,” Joel Embiid said. “He did a lot of great things for a lot of people.”

Mutombo will go down as a top 20 center of all time, but nobody has done more since they’ve retired.

MORE: Revisiting Dikembe Mutombo’s infamous finger wag

Dikembe Mutombo’s humanitarian efforts

Mutombo’s efforts to help Congo earned him the NBA’s J. Walter Kennedy Citizenship Award in 2001 and 2009. He was known as one of the good guys in sports.

Mutombo’s greatest feat may have been getting the first modern hospital in Congo built, back in 2007. Named after his mother Biamba Marie Mutombo, the hospital reportedly cost $30 million, $20 million of which Mutombo personally donated. Biamba Marie Mutombo died in Congo when she couldn’t get to a hospital in time. Mutombo personally ensured that others would not suffer as she had. 

Mutombo dedicated his time and efforts to helping as many in Africa as he could. He once paid to fly an eight-year-old boy named Matadi to the United States to remove a life-threatening tumor from his face. Johns Hopkins presented him the Goodermote Humanitarian Award for his work in reducing the spread of Polio. He launched Mutombo Coffee with the goal of closing the gender gap between African women and men. 

In more recent years, Mutombo was working as a global ambassador for the NBA and helped launch the Basketball Africa League. 

“I think I’m going to cry,” Mutombo said of the league’s opening day, calling it “a dream come true.” 

Basketball was always important to Mutombo, but it was more of a means to an end. For him, helping as many people as possible was how he found meaning in life. 

“There’s an old proverb from the African content that says that when you take the elevator to go up, you always got to make sure that you send the elevator down so it can take the other people,” Mutombo once told the Denver Post. “My way of sending the elevator down was to go back home and try to see how many lives I can touch.” 

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