“What did five fingers say to the face?”: Hakeem Olajuwon, in his rookie season whopped ‘The Whopper’ Billy Paultz

Hakeem Olajuwon was as notorious as anyone else in the NBA, but one incident in his rookie season might have been enough for him as well the league to take his anger seriously.

NBA is not just getting softer these days in the way they play the game these days, it is also getting less and less violent with time. It might also be playing a role in decreasing the entertainment factor these days but that’s what NBA management prefers over watching some of the biggest men in the world have a go at each other whenever they felt like it.

That was what they used to do back in the day when the league wasn’t as harsh on penalising the players for fighting each other. There were multiple incidents which started involving crowds from the stands which forced the NBA to make severe rules against any type of violence on the court.

But before the brawl between the Knicks and the Nuggets in 2006 and Malice at the Palace in 2004 that would change how things work in the league, several fights settled on the court with some punches or slaps and off the court with some fines and suspensions.

One such fight took place in 1984 when a rookie Hakeem Olajuwon just casually slapped the soul out of Utah Jazz player Billy Paultz in the middle of a game.

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When a rookie Hakeem Olajuwon whopped ‘The Whopper’ Billy Paultz

The number one draft pick of the 1984 NBA Draft had a tough choice to make when in his rookie season, the Houston Rockets were playing the Utah Jazz and a 14-year veteran Paultz was playing his final year in the league.

But the ABA’s legendary big man wasn’t as polite as a 36-year-old should be. He was being a consistent nuisance flopping around throughout the game. A 21-year-old Olajuwon without caring about consequences threw a wild open fist at the Jazz 6’11 big man.

Thanks to a Redditor for getting our attention to it. Have a look at the hilarious clip of the same.

Olajuwon later told, “I said, ‘Well, if you’re going to flop I might as well hit you for real.’ Ralph Sampson got a rebound and as soon as Paultz came over to cover me and flop, I hit him. I gave him a real good shot.”

There is not much information on the punishment Hakeem had to serve for the mischievous act but that slap must have been heard around the league quite loudly because not many people got into heated situations with The Dream in future.

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