Beloved finger-wagging Hall of Fame center Dikembe Mutombo, one of basketball’s most feared shot blockers and admired humanitarians, died after fighting brain cancer, officials said Monday.
Mutombo, the NBA’s first “global ambassador,” was 58.
“I am one of the many people whose lives were touched by Dikembe’s big heart and I will miss him dearly,” NBA Commissioner Adam Silver said in a statement.
Mutombo rejected 3,289 shots, the second most in NBA history, during his long career that included stops in Denver, Atlanta, Philadelphia, New Jersey, New York and Houston.
Many of those blocked shots were followed by an intimidating finger wag, telling opponents that it was in their best interest not to shoot the basketball within reach of the 7-foot-2 star.
Mutombo was named the NBA’s Defensive Player of the Year four times.
Younger fans who might not have been familiar with Mutombo’s NBA career (1991-2009) were introduced to his finger wag during a Geico car insurance ad that comically featured his blocks and taunts.
After his career of protecting the rim and sending shots back from where they came, Mutombo dedicated his life to charitable health care efforts back in his native Democratic Republic of Congo and other developing countries.
The Biamba Marie Mutombo Hospital’s emergency room, intensive care unit and 150 beds began serving patients in Kinshasa, the capital of his homeland, when it opened in December 2007.
“My thing is about fighting the mortality rate so we can allow the people to live longer,” he told NBC News in 2016. “That has been my cause, my drive.”
NBA Commissioner Silver called him “simply larger than life” and a “humanitarian at his core.”
“On the court, he was one of the greatest shot blockers and defensive players in the history of the NBA,” Silver said. “Off the floor, he poured his heart and soul into helping others.”
Dikembe Mutombo Mpolondo Mukamba Jean Jacques Wamutombo was born in Kinshasa on June 25, 1966.
He came to Georgetown University with hopes of becoming a doctor, but his large frame caught the attention of everyone on campus, including basketball coach John Thompson.
The future Hall of Fame coach, who developed future NBA big man Patrick Ewing and had Alonzo Mourning on campus, convinced Mutombo to turn his attention to the hardwood.
Mutombo parlayed his Georgetown play into becoming the fourth overall pick of the Denver Nuggets in the 1991 NBA Draft.
Mutombo earned his bachelor’s degree in 1991 and then an honorary doctorate from Georgetown in 2010.
“From his prolific college and professional basketball careers to his tireless work in retirement to improve the lives of those in need of better health and opportunity, he lived Georgetown’s values in a way we always will hold with great esteem and pride,” Georgetown Vice President Joseph Ferrara said in a statement.
“His passing is a tremendous loss for the Georgetown community and indeed the United States, Congo, and everywhere else where he uplifted those around him.”
As a pro, Mutombo’s deepest playoff run came in 2001 when he and fellow Georgetown alum Allen Iverson led the Philadelphia 76ers to the NBA finals before falling to the Los Angeles Lakers of Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal.
“It’s a sad day, especially for us Africans and really the whole world,” 76ers center and Cameroon native Joel Embiid told reporters on Monday, shortly after he learned of Mutombo’s passing.
“Other than what he has accomplished on the basketball court, I think he was even better off the court.”
F. Brinley Bruton contributed.
