Dikembe Mutombo On His Future In Basketball

[Mr.Bottomtooth]

NBA Insider: The ancient Mutombo back for another season

Web Posted: 10/06/2006 02:55 PM CDT

Mike Monroe
Express-News Staff Writer

It’s official: Suspected for years of being older than advertised, Rockets center Dikembe Mutombo finally admits he is in his 40s.

According to his official biography, Mutombo celebrated his 40th birthday on June 25.

I spoke with Mutombo, who is entering his 15th NBA season, on Thursday at Rockets training camp in Austin. As always, he looked fit, and the smile and Cookie Monster voice had not changed at all.

As always, I asked Mutombo if he were 45, maybe 46.

“There we go,” Mutombo said, with a laugh. “Always you tell me I am older than I am. Well, some of the people my age can still go up and down. It’s like Kevin Willis. I am 40 years old now and I am still playing in the NBA. Like Robert Parish and Kareem, all those old guys that played before me.”

This is the final year of the contract Mutombo signed with the Rockets, and he will earn $2.2 million. But he insists he feels so good he could play for another three or four years, though one additional season will likely be the end of the NBA road for Mutombo, and only if the Rockets want him back. He loves being the backup behind Yao Ming.

“I think I’ve been lucky all my career by staying injury-free, especially my knees,” said the 7-foot-2 center from what is now known as Democratic Republic of Congo. “That’s been No. 1. I think that’s what helped me to last that long. I will try maybe one more after this year.

“I don’t feel like going nowhere. I love playing with that Chinese dude. Come in, give him seven minutes, 10 minutes break. Actually, I was able to play 30-some minutes when he was hurt and couldn’t play. But I know my role. I know what I’ve got to do when I come in.”

Mutombo was headed from the Rockets’ practice on Thursday to a TV studio for a link-up with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, who has been in Democratic Republic of Congo reporting on the dire situation there in a series of reports led “The Killing Fields.” Political unrest in DRC forced Mutombo to postpone the opening of the Biamba Mutombo Hospital in Kinshasa, a facility, named after Mutombo’s late mother, that he has funded through ceaseless efforts through much of his NBA career.

“We’re waiting on a (DRC) Presidential election,” he said. “I am doing Anderson Cooper 360 later today, talk about the whole situation over there.

“It’s very sad, and the world is not doing nothing. I don’t know when will be a time for the African continent to get enough attention. It’s very sad.”

[Texas_Ranger]

Good for him.