Dikembe Mutombo

Dikembe Mutombo Mpolondo Mukamba Jean-Jacques Wamutombo was born on June 25, 1966, in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, to Samuel and Biamba Marie Mutombo, one of ten children. His father was a school principal and later worked in the Congolese department of education. He was a member of the Luba ethnic group and spoke French, Spanish, Portuguese and five Central African languages including Lingala and Tshiluba. As a boy he played football and practised martial arts, and at about 16 his father and brother encouraged him to concentrate on basketball because of his height.

Mutombo attended Boboto College in Kinshasa, choosing it for its demanding classes as preparation for a medical career. In 1987 he moved to the United States on a USAID scholarship to attend Georgetown University, where he began in the English as a second language programme. He served summer internships with California congressman Robert Matsui and at the World Bank, and graduated in 1991 with bachelor's degrees in linguistics and diplomacy. Georgetown awarded him an honorary doctorate in 2010, and Haverford College gave him another in 2011.

Coach John Thompson recruited Mutombo to the Georgetown Hoyas. In his first season of college basketball he once blocked 12 shots in a game. With Alonzo Mourning he formed a shot-blocking duo that inspired the fan section known as Rejection Row, which added a giant outstretched hand to a banner for every block. He was Big East Defensive Player of the Year in 1990 (shared with Mourning) and 1991, first-team All-Big East in 1991 and a third-team All-American.

The Denver Nuggets took Mutombo fourth overall in the 1991 NBA draft. He averaged 16.6 points and 12.3 rebounds as a rookie, made the All-Star team and was runner-up for Rookie of the Year. In the 1994 playoffs the eighth-seeded Nuggets beat the top-seeded Seattle SuperSonics, the first such upset in NBA history, with Mutombo setting a five-game series record of 31 blocks. He won Defensive Player of the Year in 1995 and averaged a career-high 4.5 blocks in 1995 to 1996.

In 1996 he signed a five-year, $55 million contract with the Atlanta Hawks, winning Defensive Player of the Year in 1997 and 1998 and leading the league in rebounding. Traded to Philadelphia in February 2001, he won a fourth Defensive Player of the Year award and helped the 76ers reach the 2001 NBA Finals against the Los Angeles Lakers. He then played for the New Jersey Nets (2002 to 2003), reaching another Finals, the New York Knicks (2003 to 2004) and the Houston Rockets (2004 to 2009), where he backed up Yao Ming. In 2007 he passed Kareem Abdul-Jabbar on the career blocks list, and at 40 he became the oldest player in NBA history to record more than 20 rebounds in a game. He ruptured the quadriceps tendon in his left knee in the 2009 playoffs and announced his retirement on April 23, 2009, after 18 seasons.

Mutombo was 7 ft 2 in and about 260 lb, with long arms and great timing. He averaged 2.8 blocks and 10.3 rebounds per game over his career and was among the top three in Defensive Player of the Year voting for nine straight seasons. He developed his finger wag in 1992, pointing at an opponent after a block and moving his finger side to side. The league later penalised it as taunting, so he took to wagging his finger at the crowd or the cameras instead. His flailing elbows were also notorious, prompting Yao Ming to joke that at least in games the injuries were split 50/50.

Mutombo founded the Dikembe Mutombo Foundation in 1997. Its biggest project was a 300-bed, $29 million hospital in Masina, on the outskirts of Kinshasa. Ground was broken in 2001 and building began in 2004. Mutombo gave $3.5 million early on and a further $15 million in 2006, and the Biamba Marie Mutombo Hospital, named after his mother, opened in 2007. In 2020 the foundation began building the Samuel Mutombo Institute of Science and Entrepreneurship near Mbuji-Mayi, named after his father, who died in 2003.

He paid for uniforms and expenses for the Zaire women's basketball team at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, took part in Basketball Without Borders tours of Africa, was a spokesman for CARE and the first youth emissary for the United Nations Development Programme, and was a Special Olympics International board member and global ambassador. In 2011 he travelled to South Sudan as a State Department sports envoy. He also became the NBA's first Global Ambassador, sat on the board of trustees of the National Constitution Center, and in 2020 co-founded Mutombo Coffee.

Mutombo met his wife, Rose, in Kinshasa in 1995. They made their home in Atlanta and had three children, and they also adopted four children of Rose's late brothers. Their son Ryan Mutombo played two seasons at Georgetown. His older brother Ilo played college basketball for Southern Indiana, and the brothers faced each other in a 1990 college game. Nephews Harouna Mutombo, Haboubacar Mutombo and Mfiondu Kabengele also played the game, Kabengele reaching the NBA. Mutombo became a naturalised US citizen in 2006. In 2016 he was at Brussels Airport during the terrorist bombings and posted that he was safe.

Mutombo saw basketball as a way to give back. He often said his original dream had been to become a doctor, and he channelled that ambition into the hospital and health work of his foundation, including efforts against polio and to improve care for neglected communities in the Congo. Adam Silver said he loved what the game could do to make a positive impact on communities, especially in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and across Africa.

Mutombo is remembered as one of the finest defenders the game has produced and as one of the NBA's greatest humanitarians. His four Defensive Player of the Year awards remain tied for the most ever, and his 3,289 blocks ranked second all-time at his death. The Hawks retired his number 55 on November 24, 2015, and the Nuggets on October 29, 2016. NBA players including Joel Embiid and Jaren Jackson Jr. described him as a mentor and role model, and teams across the league held tributes after his death.

Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame (2015). Four-time NBA Defensive Player of the Year (1995, 1997, 1998, 2001). Eight-time NBA All-Star. All-NBA Second Team (2001) and Third Team twice. Six All-Defensive Team selections. NBA All-Rookie First Team (1992). NBA rebounding leader twice and blocks leader three times. IBM Award (1999). J. Walter Kennedy Citizenship Award (2001, 2009). President's Service Award (1999). Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Goodermote Humanitarian Award (2011). NCAA Silver Anniversary Award (2016). Sager Strong Award (2018). Number 55 retired by the Atlanta Hawks and Denver Nuggets.

Mutombo made cameo appearances in Juwanna Mann and Like Mike (both 2002), and in Coming 2 America (2021). He starred in a famous 2013 GEICO commercial blocking everyday objects with a finger wag, appeared in a Mobil 1 advert with Kevin Harvick, and lent his voice and likeness to the 2012 Old Spice game Dikembe Mutombo's 4 1/2 Weeks to Save the World.

On October 15, 2022, Mutombo's family announced he was undergoing treatment for a brain tumour in Atlanta. He died of brain cancer in Atlanta on September 30, 2024, aged 58, surrounded by his family. The NBA announced his death the same day, and Commissioner Adam Silver sent condolences to his wife, Rose, and their children. Tributes came from the Hawks, Nuggets, 76ers, Georgetown, the Hall of Fame and players across the league.