Dispatch · August 28, 2026
The only man to win all three trophies in one season
MVP, Defensive Player of the Year and Finals MVP. Hakeem Olajuwon in 1994, and nobody else, ever.
No games last night. The anchor is the 1993-94 season, and Game 6 of that June.
The Echo
What last night rhymes with
There is a sentence that sounds like trivia and is actually the whole argument: no player has ever won MVP, Defensive Player of the Year and Finals MVP in the same season except Olajuwon in 1994.
The 1994 Finals was also a rematch of the 1984 college title game, Houston against Georgetown, Olajuwon against Patrick Ewing, 10 years later with both men at their peak. Houston won in 7, and Game 6 ends with Olajuwon getting a fingertip on John Starks's corner 3.
The 1995 run is the better answer to the asterisk people attach to those 2 titles. As a 6th seed, Houston beat Utah, Phoenix, San Antonio and Orlando, and Olajuwon averaged 35.3 points against David Robinson in the series that started 2 days after Robinson accepted the MVP trophy.
The modern rhyme is any switchable big who can score in isolation, which is the most expensive player type in basketball right now. Olajuwon was that in 1994, with footwork borrowed from a soccer goalkeeper's feet.
He did not touch a basketball until he was 15 years old. That fact and the trophy sentence belong together.
Tomorrow: Twenty-five points in one quarter, on an ankle that would not hold him.
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