Alonzo Mourning Almost Joined Patrick Ewing In New York

Zo and Ewing would’ve been dangerous.

Apr 18, 2025

In the 90s, Alonzo Mourning and Patrick Ewing were two of the best centers in the NBA.

They were both scary defensively and offensively.

Often, they would slap the ball out of the air on the defensive end, run (or jog because it was the 90s) to the other end, post up and dunk on their defender.

For example, there was this one game in Mourning’s sophomore season, where he scored 39 points and blocked 5 shots.

His team, the Charlotte Hornets, hosted the Detroit Pistons on this day (April 23, 1994), and it was the second-last game of the season.

Mourning must’ve wanted to show out for his fans or something (or he just wanted to win and make the playoffs because they were the ninth seed) because he outperformed himself in this 108-103 victory (he averaged 21.5 points, 10.2 rebounds and 3.1 blocks in the 1993-94 season).

Ewing, on the other hand, had been consistently dominating for the New York Knicks for a few years already by this time and was a 6-time All-NBA player.

These two were good. They were top-tier bigs.

And they were about to team up with one another.

On the OG’s Podcast, Mourning told Udonis Haslem and Mike Miller that after the Charlotte Hornets refused to give him his desired contract, he considered joining the Knicks prior to signing with the Miami Heat.

“I reached out to Patrick [Ewing] and I asked him about playing Pat Riley and I said, ‘I heard his practices were hard, man,’” Mourning said. “And Pat was like, ‘Boy, you went to Georgetown. As hard as our practices was, you ain’t going to be intimidated by them practices.’ He said, ‘Go to Miami.’ I said, ‘Patrick, I had a chance to come to New York and play with you’ and he was like ‘Nah, I don’t want you here. Go to Miami.’”

If Ewing had agreed to let Mourning join him in the Mecca of basketball, do you know how scary the Knicks would have been?

Ewing would’ve continued playing center and Mourning would’ve dropped down to power forward. They would’ve had the most skilled frontcourt on both ends of the court during that time.

I don’t think anyone was scoring on them in the paint. If you thought Ewing and Marcus Camby was a defensive cheat code, imagine Ewing and Mourning. In 1995-96, the first year they would’ve played together, they, combined, averaged 5.6 blocks a game.

And they would’ve dominated the paint on the other end of the court as well.

Together, they could’ve averaged 45.7 points per game.

However, this is all hypothetical. We don’t know how well they would’ve meshed together. Their skills could very well clash.

But they are both Georgetown bigs, so who knows?

Mourning also talked about his departure from Charlotte, saying he never wanted to leave. He said it was his second home but the organization’s management didn’t want to bring him back.

”You know what, I wished we could keep the band together, unfortunately, business got in the way,” Mourning said. “I’m going to say this publically, you know, I don’t think we had the proper management to keep it together because I was willing to stay there, but God had another plan.”

He added he was willing to take less money to stay with the Hornets as well, but the owner at that time, George Shinn, didn’t believe Mourning was “worth” the money.