Olajuwon: 'I would love today's NBA'

Here's a refreshing concept: Retired sports great shows deep appreciation for the way the sport has evolved since his retirement.

Hall of fame center Hakeem Olajuwon is one of the best, most decorated, most revered NBA big men of all time. So one might assume that the 12-time All-Star, two-time champion, two-time Defensive Player of the Year, and onetime league MVP would be dismayed by the smaller, post-averse, 3-point-heavy dimension the league has taken. After all, scads of other bygone stars have expressed skepticism or outright disdain for the modern game, from Oscar Robertson to Kareem Abdul-Jabbar to Charles Oakley to Tracy McGrady and beyond. Charles Barkley even went so far as to call today's NBA the "worst I've ever seen."

Olajuwon, though, shares no such misgivings.

"I would love today's NBA," he wrote in a Players' Tribune essay published Tuesday. "It's like when I was a freshman in college and didn't know what a center should act like - so I pretended I was a guard. I didn't want to have a position at all."

Olajuwon appreciates the way the modern game has helped "liberate big men from their traditional duties." He recalls being told early in his college days that his place was in the middle, and he had no business straying from the key.

"I didn't want to stay in the key," he writes. "I watched the guards and I was inspired by their creativity.

"The key was boring."

Olajuwon isn't concerned about bigs like him going extinct; he's excited by what they've grown capable of. The game isn't dying, it's just changing.

"Small ball won't eliminate big men, but it might eliminate our old ideas of positions," he writes. "Everyone likes to compare eras, but it's possible that today's big men are more skilled as all-around players than ever before. Look at guys like Draymond Green and LaMarcus Aldridge in this year's playoffs. I'm in awe of how they play like guards and centers at the same time.

"It almost makes me wish I was still playing today. I just feel bad for whoever has to guard a guy like Draymond Green right now."