Dikembe Mutombo, the shot-blocking specialist whose Hall of Fame career included being named NBA Defensive Player of the Year four times over 18 seasons and who was an ambassador for the sport after his retirement, has died. He was 58.
The NBA said today that he died of brain cancer in Atlanta but did not give any other details. He had been diagnosed in 2022.
“Dikembe Mutombo was simply larger than life,” NBA commissioner Adam Silver said in a statement. “On the court, he was one of the greatest shot blockers and defensive players in the history of the NBA. Off the floor, he poured his heart and soul into helping others. … “There was nobody more qualified than Dikembe to serve as the NBA’s first Global Ambassador.”
The 7-foot-2 “Mount Mutombo” played 18 seasons starting with the Denver Nuggets, who picked him fourth overall in the 1991 NBA Draft out of Georgetown University, where he was the two-time Big East Defensive Player of the Year. He played five seasons with the team before moving on to the Atlanta Hawks, Philadelphia 76s, New Jersey Nets, New York Knicks and finishing with the Houston Rockets, retiring at 42 after the 2008-09 campaign.
He was best known for snuffing out opponents’ shots and following with a finger-wag gesture that became his calling card. He ranks second all-time with 3,289 NBA blocks, behind only Hakeem Olajuwon. Mutombo played in eight All-Star Games and was All-NBA three times. He was inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame in 2015, and his No. 55 jersey was retired by the Nuggets and the Hawks.
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After retiring, Mutombo became a true ambassador of the game, working on humanitarian and charitable causes, often in his native Africa. Fluent in nine languages, he worked with such groups as UNICEF and the Special Olympics and helped develop the Basketball Africa League.
“He was a humanitarian at his core,” Silver added in his statement. “He loved what the game of basketball could do to make a positive impact on communities, especially in his native Democratic Republic of the Congo and across the continent of Africa.”
Born on June 25, 1966, in Kinsasha, Mutombo also has a handful of acting credits, most recently playing himself in the 2021 Eddie Murphy sequel Coming 2 America. He also played himself opposite Kyrie Irving and other current and former NBA stars in the 2018 basketball comedy Uncle Drew and appeared in 2002’s Juwanna Mann. He also voiced himself in a 2018 episode of Family Guy.
