Basketball - Mutombo Not Happy With Jokes On His Age

This 40 year old NBA player is tired of all the jokes people and television are making about his age. Dikembe Mutombe has played in the NBA for 16 seasons, blocked nearly 3,200 shots, he has had eight All Star appearances and has won four Defensive Player of the Year awards.

Jokes about Mutombo’s age have been circulating since his college days in Georgetown where he was teased about being older than way he says he is. However, now Mutombo has had enough of these jokes. He said that his wife and nine year old daughter were not happy about hearing the jokes during television broadcasts. Mutombo said that would meet the NBA commissioner, David Stern, for advice on how to stop the TV commentators from openly accusing him of misrepresenting his date of birth.

According to Mutombo, the jokes do not disturb him but his wife feels uncomfortable about them and while his daughter wants to know why they keep talking about his age. Mutombo feels that these jokes make him look like a liar in front of his daughter.

Mutombo had pulled in 10 or more rebounds in 11 straight games since he took over the position of starting center from the injured Yao Ming. This is the Rockets’ Congo born center’s longest streak since the 2000-2001 season. This has gone on to generate a lot of talk about how much game this 40 year old NBA player still has left in him.

According to Rockets’ general manager Carroll Dawson, people should not be talking about how old he is. People should actually be saying that Mutombo is younger than 40 and not older.

While Mutombo is himself surprised at the way he has been rebounding and says that he feels good about himself, both, physically and mentally.