The seven tallest players in NBA history have more in common than exceptional height. Of the seven, only Yao Ming has played in All-Star game. Only one has played for a championship team and none of them have won an MVP Award. Most of the seven spent the majority of their NBA career riding the pine.
Manute Bol, great shot blocker but never a scoring threat
Standing 7'7", Bol had a definite height advantage, but he was a rail thin 225 pounder. Centers who posted up against him had little trouble pushing and jostling him. Still, the Sudanese giant put up some truly impressive shot blocking stats. In a 10-year career he twice led the NBA in blocked shots and four other times, he was among the league's top five in that department. Bol still shares the NBA record for most blocked shots in a half (11) and in a quarter (8). Bol averaged 3.3 blocks per game while playing less than 19 minutes a game.
In spite of his towering height, Bol was never much of a scorer (2.6 points per game) or rebounder (4.2 per game). He's still the only player in NBA history with more blocked shots (2086) than points (1599).
Gheorge Muresan was a good shooter with limited mobility
Muresan was also 7'7", but he was a significantly better rebounder and scorer than Bol. The Romanian-born giant played for the Washington Bullets and the New Jersey Nets from 1993 to 2000. His best season was 1995-96 when he was with the Bullets. Muresan played in 76 games and averaged 14.5 points, 9.6 rebounds and 2.3 blocked shots per game. Those stats earned him the NBA's Most Improved Player Award.
Muresan had a surprisingly soft shooting touch for a big man. He led the NBA in field goal percentage two times and had a career field goal percentage of .573. His career was hampered by a lack of mobility and agility, along with recurring injuries. Chronic foot and back injuries forced Muresan to retire when he was 29.
Shawn Bradley had the longest career of the seven
While playing for Philadelphia, Dallas and New Jersey from 1993 to 2005, Shawn Bradley played in 832 regular season games and blocked 2119 shots. Like Bol, he's best remembered for his shot blocking skills. He led the NBA in blocked shots with 228 in the 2000-2001 season. Four other times, Bradley was second in that category.
While he's wasn't a dominating center, Bradley still put up respectable numbers in scoring (8.1 per game) and rebounding (6.3 per game) while playing less than 24 minutes a game.
NBA Hall of Famer and basketball commentator, Bill Walton praised Bradley's game by saying: "He's not a tall guy who happens to play basketball. He is a basketball player who happens to be tall."
Yao Ming, is he the best of the bunch?
Since making his NBA debut in 2002, Yao Ming has averaged 19 points and 9.2 rebounds a game. He's also played in seven consecutive All-Star games from 2003 to 2009. Among the seven tallest players, none of them have a higher free throw percentage than Yao's .833. The only apparent negatives are a lack of durability and the fact that he hasn't been able to lead the Houston Rockets to an NBA championship.
In his first three years, Yao played in 244 of the Rockets' 246 regular season games. But, in the past two seasons, Yao has only played in five games. A series of injuries to his left ankle and foot have kept him sidelined. If he's able to return for the 2011-2012 season, Yao will be 31. That's an age when athletes are more likely to get injured. But, until someone just as tall or taller puts up better numbers; I'd call Yao the best of the biggest.
Rounding out the field at 7'5"
Three 7'5" behemoths - Chuck Nevitt, Slavko Vranes and Pavel Podkolzin, round out the field. Nevitt had the longest career of the three. He played in 155 regular season games in nine seasons while averaging just over five minutes a game. During his tenure in the NBA, Nevitt was waived nine times by six different teams. Oddly enough, Nevitt is the only one of the seven tallest to play for an NBA championship team. He accomplished that by playing for the Lakers in the 1984-85 season.
If you blinked your eyes when Slavko Vranes was on the court, you may have missed the NBA career of the strapping Serbian. He was waived by the New York Knickerbockers six months after they made him a second round pick in the 2003 draft. A month later, the Portland Trailblazers signed him to a 10-day contract. Vranes played in one game for Portland. He was in for three minutes and ensured that his name would be in the box score by taking one missed shot and committing one foul. Reportedly, Vranes has grown another inch since leaving the NBA. Wherever he's playing, he's now 7'6".
Russian born Pavel Podokolzin fared a bit better than Vranes. During two brief stints with the Dallas Mavericks, Podkolzin racked up 28 minutes of playing time in six games. He was well compensated for his playing time. According to www.basketball-reference.com, Podokolzin earned $2.8 million in his brief NBA career.That works out to around $100,000 a minute.
When you're that tall, everyone expects more
Even though basketball is a team sport, fans just expect more from the big man in the middle. Chuck Nevitt noted that by remarking: "You're [still] supposed to get every rebound and block every shot. If your teammates get beat out front and their man scores, they get all over you because you're supposed to come over and help. If anyone ever scored inside the paint, it was always your fault."
Sources
"List of tallest players in National Basketball Association History" www.wikipedia.org
Young, Jeff C. Top 10 Basketball Shot-Blockers. (Berkeley Heights, N.J.: Enslow Publishers, Inc.), 2000.
Young, Jeff C. Yao Ming: Basketball's Big Man. (Berkeley Heights, N.J.: Enslow Publishers, Inc.), 2005.
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