We're now midway through the NBA season and things are starting to get interesting. The Boston Celtics are leading the Eastern Conference and the Golden State Warriors are top of the West. While this isn't all that surprising, it's the rest of the conference positions that are.
The Oklahoma City Thunder are currently struggling at the fifth spot in the West, which is still a nice position but considering they went out and picked up both Paul George and Carmelo Anthony to join last year's regular season MVP, Russell Westbrook, everyone thought they'd be a lot closer to GSW right now.
The Miami Heat, who missed out on a playoff spot last season to the Chicago Bulls, are sitting pretty at fourth in the East. Another team doing better than expected in the East is the Philadelphia 76ers. With a young and hungry team that includes potential Rookie of the Year Ben Simmons and Cameroonian Centre Joel Embiid, after finishing second from bottom in the East last year they're now enjoying battling it out for a playoff spot currently just one position off at ninth.
But where is everyone going to finish? Who is going to make the playoffs? Who is going to win Rookie of the Year? What about MVP? Who is going to win the chip this year?
Instead of answering these questions ourselves we thought we'd ask someone with a little more experience.
Enter: Dikembe Mutombo.
One of the most dominant players in the history of the NBA, the 7'2" Congolese/American Centre is an 8x NBA All-Star, 4x NBA Defensive Player of the Year, 2x NBA rebounding leader and 3x NBA blocks leader. So basically, he's a legend. He's also the guy that Michael Jordan spent years trying to dunk on - which he eventually did.
We were lucky enough to catch up with Mutombo at the Tissot NBA Launch Party in London last week (Tissot is the official watch of NBA) and he gave us his predictions for this year's season. They are as follows:
Eastern Conference Champion: Boston Celtics
Western Conference Champion: Golden State Warriors
2017-2018 NBA Champions: Golden State Warriors
Rookie of the Year: Ben Simmons (Philadelphia 76ers)
Regular Season MVP: Giannis Antetokounmpo (Milwaukee Bucks)
NBA Finals MVP: Kevin Durant (Golden State Warriors)
Also stating his favourite moment as an NBA player was when he made the NBA Finals in 2001 playing for the Philadelphia 76ers. And even though they lost to the LA Lakers 1-4, Mutombo says playing alongside Regular Season MVP Allen Iverson, and being coached by that year's NBA Coach of the Year, Larry Brown, was definitely his most cherished moment wearing a basketball jersey.
Sneaking in one last question, we had to ask about the Michael Jordan rivalry and his endless quest to dunk on him. When MJ finally did rise above Mutombo mountain and stuff it home he was actually given a technical foul for wagging his finger at the then Atlanta Hawks player after the deed was done.
The finger wag was Mutombo's trademark. It was a way of letting players know after he blocked their shots that he wasn't going to have it in his house. So while Jordan received a technical for his finger wag aimed at #55, how many technical fouls did Mutombo receive during his career for the same act?
"I got a lot of technical fouls," he admits. "That's something that people forget. I actually led the NBA in technical fouls for just wagging my finger and saying, 'No, no, no, not in my house. Not today.' So I got a lot."
