The Eight Foot Two Schlub

[candyman718]

But we don't even know if he has played basketball before. And the average 30 year old is not in good shape. Playing at NBA speed he would be winded in no time. It's tough to play defense with your hands on your knees. This guy, at the very least is going to need serious conditioning and coaching. That is why I asked about the time frame on the question.

[mjkidd]

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But we don't even know if he has played basketball before. And the average 30 year old is not in good shape. Playing at NBA speed he would be winded in no time. It's tough to play defense with your hands on your knees. This guy, at the very least is going to need serious conditioning and coaching. That is why I asked about the time frame on the question.

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For Christ's sake, he could get into decent shape in a month.

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what are the current NBA rules for standing in the paint.....3 seconds? 5 seconds?

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Lolz as long as you damn well feel like it.

[jfk]

A lot of this comes down to will. With his sudden gigantism this guy would now have the tools not only to start but to become the greatest force in the sport. It might not happen immediately due to conditioning and learning the nuances, but within three years if he was as motivated and willing to work as an top athlete, he'd be unstoppable.

If he didn't have this drive he could easily slip into the same grouping as all the examples given previously (Bol, Muresan, Eaton, etc.) He could have a long career playing a role based on size alone. This might have him starting for some teams. He'd still need some drive to get himself to be a no doubt starter or legend.

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Joel -- what is involved in getting his shot off? Why would that be difficult for someone so tall? How would an average 7 footer (or even Shaq) be able to contest his shot?

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Most jump shooters need to be able to catch the ball cleanly and maintain a certain distance from a defender to feel comfortable shooting/prevent their shot from being blocked. This is why JJ Reddick will never be a great NBA player, he can't create his own shot. Larry Bird OTOH was brilliant at creating just enough distance to get off his shot. Most players can't make a 12 ft jumper with a hand in their face. Like many great defensive players Bruce Bowen is a master at 1) denying the ball 2) Penetrating a shooter's comfort zone 3) disrupting his rhythm/hindering his shooting process. There are lots of guys who are GREAT shooters that never make it in the NBA because they can't get their shot off consistently (think Tim Legler). If 8 ft guy can't drive to the hoop, then his defender will just crowd him as soon as he catches the ball/picks up his dribble, taking away the space he needs to shoot comfortably. This is by far the best way to defend a jump shooter, because it stops him from shoooting at all. Larry Bird and Reggie Miller had a million little moves (foot jabs, step backs, head fakes, pump fakes, etc) that they used to keep defenders off balance and create space to shoot. This is a crucial part of basketball that is entirely lost on most casual fans. As Jordan got older and became more of a jump shooter, he too developed a lot of the same moves/techniques (like his fadeaway jumper for example).

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This is the point I'm at in the thread so if it's covered later I apologize, but one thing was omitted. The great shooters, Bird, Reggie, Mike in the last half of his career, were masters at moving without the ball. This is also why it will be possible for Reddick to succeed in the league, with hard work, and even harder for our big guy.
The moves, the jabs and pumps, especially Mike's fallaway, create the memorable shots but a huge part is just sneaking around and getting open. Everybody thinks Mike is great for the wrong reasons. He was the best player ever to move without the ball. It's ho hum when he'd knock down another wide open 18 footer but that was the mind blowing part, getting that open, consistently, against world class defense, not the silly reverse scoop layups and other nonsense.
In terms of our big guy, he will be an offensive non-factor without serious dedication in learning basketball skills. Height and size mean nothing if you don't know how to use it. Think about Dennis Rodman putting the brakes on Shaq and Karl Malone and other centers, players that had inches on him and outweighed him 100+.
Now, Rodman is the greatest defender of all time, but Rodman to these all star offensive players would not even be as dominant as a capable defensive center would be to our big guy. Without serious hard work he would be shut down so absolutely, and anybody saying otherwise knows very little about basketball.

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I hate retarded people that think that tall basketball players have no athletic skill. Dirk Nowitzki and Shaq have "average" athletic skill? Give me a f*cking break! Dirk is one of the five or ten best shooters in the world right now. He's absolutely an NBA starter at 6'3". Shaq in his prime had the nicest post moves of anyone in the league, and is tremendously athletic for a big man.

Seriously, there are 100s of college basketball players out there that are within one inch of the height of Shaq that have no shot at ever cracking an NBA roster. That's not because they all have "below average athleticism". It's because they didn't spend years in the weight room to get his strength and because they don't have the extraordinary natural tools that he has (quickness, hand-eye coordination, vertical leap, reaction time).

As for this 8'2" guy, he'd have no shot at playing right away. A team might take a shot on him as a prospect, but he wouldn't actually crack a roster until he had a year or two of training. Again, make him a 20-year old schlub, and he's got about a pretty good chance at starting eventually, but at his advanced age, it's very unlikely that he ever will. It will take five years before he's got the basketball skills to really realize his potential and at that point, he'll be approaching retirement age. The idea that he'd single-handedly lead a team to the championship is downright ludicrous.

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The bold is all I read yet. This MIGHT be an issue of semantics, but shooting a basketball is much more of a skill than an athletic endeavor. They are above average athletes when compared to the population and compared to men their size, but actually far below the average NBA player. They succeed because of their incredible amount of skills. And in terms of our big guy, Shaq's skills took years and years to learn. He was a big clumsy doofus (only a slight exaggeration) when he came into the league.

Really, your first few sentences are more than enough to betray your ignorance about this subject, and normally it's not my style to point this out but you did call people retards, so hey.

EDIT: Ok, the rest was fairly spot on, we're in agreement, but easy on the name calling, dig it? The end result is the same, but the other thing i'd disagree about is that Shaq's post moves are the best ever right now, and keep getting better because that is a skill. In his prime he just knocked people down. Some of the other things I think are more skill than natural ability, but maybe it's a case of of honing a natural ability, quickness, reaction time, etc. Quickness is also a learned and you can take a slow guy and speed him up quite a bit if show him HOW to move.

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muresan was "only" 7'7. ask any scout wheather theyd have 3 years of lame competition or 7" OF height THEYD TAKE THE HEIGHT ALL DAY LONG.

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So the scout would pass on a 6'8 stud like Lebron or Carmello if there was some 7'3 stiff available?

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8'3

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Good god you're a moron. I apologize if this has already been stated.

[MuresanForMVP]

do people understand just how tall 8 feet is? It seems like a lot don't

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While my answer is no, he would not start in the NBA, all of the examples of really huge players brought up to refute those who think that he would start, all started at least one game. Bradley, Muresan, Eaton and Bol. None were all-stars but they did start. And we spent a lot of time comparing him to Shaq, probably one of the top 5 centers of all time (Russell, Wilt, Kareem, Olajuwan, Shaq?). But if you analyze every NBA starting center, there's a lot of garbage out there.

I think, in order to help back up our claim, someone needs to come up with the name of a 7'4+ college player who never started an NBA game? Can anyone think of someone?

Also, David, is the question would he start 1 game or start regularly? Would he have to start right away in order to be able to answer yes or would the answer still be yes if he started a year after his size changed?

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Thomas Hamilton. King HS in chicago. 7 foot 4, roughly 400 lbs. Barely made it in college.

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People keep bringing up real life players to refute the point that an 8'2 guy would dominate. This makes NO SENSE. The guy David describes in the OP is 8'2" tall and well over 400 lbs, he's also of normal proportions with no significant physical/health problems and has the agility/speed/endurance of an average 6' tall man.

The NBA, or any other league, has NEVER seen a specimen like this. No one even remotely close to this has ever played pro ball, and probably never will. To say, "look at George Muresan/Manute Bol/Mark Eaton, etc" is completely irrelevant. The guy David is describing has NEARLY A FOOT and hundreds of pounds on any of them, plus he's more durable, proportional, and coordinated.

This guy is taller than any man on the planet currently, he is NOTHING like anyone in the league...ever. To compare him to guys who all started in the NBA at one point, and were significantly inferior to the guy this thread is meant to discuss in many ways does nothing to help the argument that he wouldn't excell.

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Ok, this is the only semi reasonable pro-big guy post, but the problem is David was too ambiguous with his original post and the idea you have in mind but not be the one intended.