Dikembe Mutombo’s three best Denver Nuggets seasons ranked for NBA Block Week
The 1993-94 season takes the top spot in our ranking of Mutombo’s best seasons in a Denver Nuggets uniform. That particular season had everything a great year needs. It included great statistics, a signature moment and postseason success.
In the 1993-94 season, Mutombo averaged 12.0 points, 11.8 rebounds and 4.1 blocks per game. It was one of the 15 seasons in which a player has averaged over 4.0 blocks per game.
The 1993-94 season was Mutombo’s best in terms of total blocks, he racked up 336 blocked shots over 2,853 minutes. This could also be viewed as the year that Dikembe Mutombo fully embraced his defensive identity. It was the first of many seasons in which he took less than 700 field goal attempts in a season, and also the second time in which he collected over 700 defensive rebounds, something he accomplished four times.
The 1993-94 season included what can definitively described as Mutombo’s signature moment. The Denver Nuggets—the No. 8 seed in the ’94 season—took down the No. 1 overall seed (63 wins) Seattle Supersonics in a five-game Western Conference First Round series.
After winning that fateful Game 7, the image everyone remembers is an emotional Mutombo collapsed on the floor and clutching the ball in joy. In that triumphant series against the Supersonics, Mutombo averaged a whopping 6.2 blocks per game, a total of 31 over five games. And more important, Mutombo completely neutralized Shawn Kemp, who averaged 14.8 points per game on 37.1 percent shooting from the field.
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The Denver Nuggets would go on to lose in a hard-fought seven-game series to the John Stockton–Karl Malone Utah Jazz in the next round but not before making a mark on the league.