Defensive Legends: The Greatest Defensive Players in NBA History | News, Scores, Highlights, Stats, and Rumors

The superb Hakeem Olajuwon stands in many ways as the greatest defensive player the game has seen, a true beast on that end of the floor who possessed a rare combination of incredible athleticism, speed and skills to go with nice strength.

Those attributes helped him to excel at that end of the court for sure. For his size (6'11"),his versatility was on par with many other guys, but arguably, he had the best help and off-ball defense of all time and stands so tall in this debate.

Not only that he was capable to shut down his man, he was a shot blocking machine who could just have a ton of steals, defended the pick n' roll well and even if there was a switch on the perimeter, he was so good in there too.

He made nice decisions on the court and just changed the game in another way with his total domination as a defender. No one can take that from him. He was one of the best shot blockers and by far no one ever interrupted the lanes as a big man better than No. 34.

Career Facts:

-Defensive Player Of The Year: 2 (1993,94)

-All NBA Defensive Selections: 9 (those include 5x all first)

-NBA All Time leader in blocked shots

-Rebounds: 13,748 (11.1)--------------------------------------1621 (11.2)

-Blocked shots: 3,830 (3.1)---------------------------------472 (3.3)

-Ranks at No.1 in most career blocks of all time

-Ranks at No.1 in most playoff blocks per game

-Ranks at No.2 in most career blocks in total

-Ranks at No.3 in most career blocks per game

-Ranks at No.5 in career defensive win share

-Ranks at No.11 in playoff defensive win share

-Ranks at No.22 in career defensive rebound percent

-Ranks at No.27 in playoff defensive rebound percent

-Ranks at No.11 in career total rebounds

-Ranks at No.25 in career rebound average

-Ranks at No.9 in most steals, No.1 by far more then any other big men

-2x rebound titles (2x leader in total, who averaged ridiculous 16.8 boards in the playoffs)

-3x block titles (2x in total, averaged insane 4.6 blocks per game)

-5x leader in defensive rating