{"id":796047,"date":"2026-07-26T05:36:14","date_gmt":"2026-07-26T05:36:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/796047\/"},"modified":"2026-07-26T05:36:14","modified_gmt":"2026-07-26T05:36:14","slug":"rockets-hall-of-famer-works-out-with-promising-nba-centers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/796047\/","title":{"rendered":"Rockets Hall of Famer works out with promising NBA centers"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Updated July 25, 2026, 11:38 p.m. CT<\/p>\n<p>NBA Hall of Famer Hakeem Olajuwon was recently seen training with young centers Victor Wembanyama and Kel&#8217;el Ware.Olajuwon is a two-time Defensive Player of the Year and the NBA&#8217;s all-time leader in blocked shots.Wembanyama is the reigning Defensive Player of the Year, while Ware is a new member of the Milwaukee Bucks.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\"><a data-autotag=\"13a51ca7-e216-40c0-a272-58d18f5541d7\" href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/basketball\/nba\/teams\/houston-rockets\/10\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" data-t-l=\":b|e|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\">Houston Rockets<\/a> legend and NBA Hall of Famer Hakeem &#8220;The Dream&#8221; Olajuwon was recently seen at the gym working out with two of the NBA&#8217;s young centers. Olajuwon was photographed with the reigning Defensive Player of the Year Award winner Victor Wembanyama as well as Kel&#8217;el Ware, a new member of the <a data-autotag=\"095a6c49-6910-41a9-b78d-8bbd1d214447\" href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/basketball\/nba\/teams\/milwaukee-bucks\/15\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" data-t-l=\":b|e|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\">Milwaukee Bucks<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">A two-time Defensive Player of the Year Award winner and a three-time blocks leader in his own right, Olajuwon is one of the greatest defenders in league history and would be a great mentor for any big man to learn from. With 3,830 career rejections, Olajuwon ranks No. 1 all-time in the category, averaging 3.1 blocks per game throughout his 18-year career.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">However, Rockets fans would be much more excited to see him working with Alperen Sengun instead of a Southwest Division rival in Wembanyama.<\/p>\n<p>Need a news break? <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" data-t-l=\":body nav (play)|e|auto spike click:4|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_sp_a\" href=\"https:\/\/play.usatoday.com\/?itm_source=SPIKE&amp;itm_campaign=PLAYSPIKE&amp;itm_medium=ONSITE\">Check out the all new PLAY hub with puzzles, games and more!<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Updated July 25, 2026, 11:38 p.m. CT NBA Hall of Famer Hakeem Olajuwon was recently seen training with&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":796048,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3794],"tags":[72400,7,292,194,4066,6,211,90586,72742,72743,72801,72404,72559,74239,72408,72444,72422,72405,72406,72558,72751,72403],"class_list":["post-796047","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-houston-rockets","tag-accessfree","tag-basketball","tag-houston","tag-houston-rockets","tag-houstonrockets","tag-nba","tag-rockets","tag-sourcerockets-wire","tag-sstssportsnbarockets","tag-sstsnrockets","tag-tagalperen-sengun","tag-tagbasketball","tag-taghouston-rockets","tag-tagkelel-ware","tag-tagmilwaukee-bucks","tag-tagnational-sports","tag-tagnba","tag-tagoverall-positive","tag-tagsports-news","tag-tagstory-highlights-ai-enabled","tag-tagvictor-wembanyama","tag-typestory"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/116984662146873705","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796047","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=796047"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/796047\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/796048"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=796047"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=796047"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=796047"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}