The Eighth Wonder

Here at East versus West, we've been thinking. What would it mean to the game if some freak of nature were to suddenly spring on the scene and dramatically alter our understanding of basketball dynamics. That freak of nature: The Eight-Foot Man. Enjoy.
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(Mr. West)

Get ready. He is coming. The Eight-Foot Man.

Eight feet of human flesh and bone. That puts a man's head just below the twine under the rim. It means an extended hand upward clears therim by about, oh, 4". Standing still, this man can reach up and bend his wrist at the rim without jumping.

I guarantee that in our lifetime, in 25 years, we will see an 8-footer play hoops. It will mildly alter the game of NBA basketball. And in 40 years a decent 8-footer will actually be good enough to drastically change the rules of the game.

Speaking strictly scientifically, based on the recent rate of growth of humans accelerated by new diets, drugs, and selective genetics, it is inevitable that the 8-foot baller is on the horizon. Will he be a genetic freak made in a lab? No. But he will emerge from some mysterious land (Africa, China?) to ride the pine at some D-I school. Then he will be followed by a few more until one lands in the NBA. He will suck. Yes, he will suck dozens upon dozens of eggs. But that gangly giraffe motherfucker will be getting paid while you and I mock his uncoordinated gait.

I envision the 8-footer to be the fans' hero-the scrub at the end of the bench who gets Darkoesque love when he makes a hoop in garbage time. Highlight material for the wisecracking ESPN SportsCenter guys. He will be a tall Yinka Dare. Shit, a tall Manut Bol or Gheorghe Muresan for that matter. And while little guards and athletic forwards will dominate the game thereby rendering our colossal goofball useless, that tall man upon men will start to change the game.

Yao ain't shit. Shawn Bradley wasn't shit. Muresan was funny but he was shit, too. Other players who are shorter are infinitely better and more fun to watch. And the NBA game has all but phased out low post play. Hell, without Shaq I am not sure the center position would even still exist. Does anyone like to be a center? No. Does anyone even respect a center anymore? No. So once Shaq dies (yes, the Big Diesel is soon gonna need a Big Transplant) the 8-footer can do his thing. No, he will not dribble and shoot 3's. But his shot blocking in the paint will be OK enough to make an impact.

But watch...the first few tall dorks will be horrible. Until the real Man shows up. Ready to play. Ready to force rims to be 11'. Ready to make 3 seconds illegal on defending centers. Watch.
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(Mr. East)

Mr. West must have missed it, but we have already seen the coming of the 8-Foot Player. I admit that I had never heard of Ali Nashnush Suleiman until I began to research this piece. I still have been unable to find a photo of this hideous freak from Libya, but I was able to discern that he was a Libyan who played for his national team in the early 1960s. I don't toss around the word freak lightly in this case with no photo evidence to back me up. I can draw a fairly solid conclusion about this hulking lummox by his entry in the IMDB actors listings for Fellini's Satyricon. Nuff said.

Obviously, Ali Nashnush bore no resemblence to Steve Nash(nush) because his basketball career has gone largely undocumented. This is not the case for the current "World's Tallest Basketball Player", Kosen Sultan of Turkey(at right). This 2.42 meter behemoth belongs to the Turkish Basketball Club, Galatasaray from Istanbul...as I translate meters to feet, I come up with 8-foot one-half inch. According to this french article, he is from a small village of 20 homes on the border of Turkey and Iraq, and he can dunk without jumping. No one in his family is more than about 6 feet tall. He's 22 years old and doctors say he will max out at around 8 feet, 2 inches, and change. He has been receiving some surgeries that will allow him to play basketball and move more freely, but never for more than 15 minutes a game. It will be interesting to see if he can do anything on the court other than look ridiculous for those 15 minutes.

The pituitary condition "gigantism" seems to be the main contributor to unusually large humans, and in particular to the overgrown benchwarmers that have occasionally captivated the attention of the public. Out of control hormones have produced more than one basketball player in recent years. Guys like Manute Bol and Gheorghe Muresan come to mind immediately when we think of this phenomenon, but neither of those players could physically compete on a nightly basis.

Ralph Sampson was a pre-cursor to skilled big men like Kevin Garnett and Dirk Nowitzki but he, too, was unable to escape the debilitating knee problems that come with such gigantic proportions. Yao Ming is the reigning NBA hulk, and as far as centers go represents an evolution of sorts that has brought the idea of "super-sized" players into the realm of realistic discussion instead of being simple shot-blocking curiosities. So, is it so far fetched that Mr. West would imagine a guy playing in the NBA at 8-feet tall? Not at all. In 40 years will we see a skilled 8-footer that changes the game? Maybe. What would that be like?

Can you imagine the pre-draft hype? I think Hubie Brown's head would explode! The teams waiting for the ping pong ball would be required to hook up to a respirator for fear of hyperventilation. How many teams would tank the season to get at Mr. Big? Unfortunately for the Knicks, the 2050 1st round pick that they traded to the Las Vegas Kings is not lottery protected and GM Isiah Thomas III's team is sitting at 11-67 with a week to play.