Cuttino Mobley on being mentored by Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen, Charles Barkley, and Hakeem Olajuwon — “They all chipped in”
Cuttino Mobley
© Kirby Lee - USA TODAY Sports
When Cuttino Mobley arrived in the NBA, he knew that he had to earn his stripes. Confident win his score-first mentality, “Cat” was convinced that one day, he’ll be one of the best players in the league and it was just a matter of “when.”
Learning from the best
Normally, youngsters make great strides in the NBA after a few years of constantly honing their game. In Mobley’s case, he got a rare opportunity to mature and learn a thing or two when he was drafted by the Houston Rockets in 1998, the same year the team formed the unconventional Big 3 of Scottie Pippen, Charles Barkley, and Hakeem Olajuwon.
Michael Jordan was already retired for the second time that year, but given his friendship with Pippen and Barkley, “His Airness,” according to Mobley, would drop by the locker room every now and then. As expected, “Cat” made the most of that perk.
“As a rookie, I was in a locker room shared by Barkley, Pippen, and Olajuwon. Charles and Michael Jordan were good friends, and obviously Scottie, so he would come around a lot. That’s the cream of the crop. The top of the top. After that, it really didn’t matter to me. Scottie was a good friend of mine. And he mentored me. And then when MJ was around, and Charles, they all chipped in. So not are you only on the highest stage, but you’re with four of the top 50 players to ever play the game. I got that awareness at 23 years old and it stuck with me,” Mobley told i80 Sports Blog in 2018.
It paid off
Indeed, Mobley had a unique maiden NBA season and it would’ve been a shame if he wasn’t able to apply everything he learned from four of the greatest players of all time. But Mobley was a good student. In just his second season with the Rockets, “Cat” took off and improved his numbers from 10 points to 16 points per game. And in the 2000-01 season, Mobley was already the focal point of the Rockets’ offense.
“Ask the other teams. Ask what they have to do to stop him. They have to shift their whole defense,” then-Rockets head coach Rudy Tomjanovich said of Mobley in 2001.
Unfortunately, Mobley reached his peak in an era where guys like Kobe Bryant, Tracy McGrady, and Allen Iverson were at the top.. Nevertheless, “Cat” was happy to have learned from the best and proved that at one point, he was a star.
