Not since 7' 7" Gheorghe Muresan guarded the paint for the Bullets from 1993 to 1997 has an enormous dude played basketball regularly for a D.C. area team - sorry Roy Hibbert, 7' 2" doesn't cut it. For those fans looking for another behemoth to cheer on, the Maryland Nighthawks of the American Basketball Association have announced that they've signed 7' 8 3/4" Sun Ming Ming, supposedly the tallest person to ever play professional basketball.
The team, which plays in Rockville, is holding a press conference tomorrow introducing Sun. If you'd like to see him duck his head when he walks through doors, head up to Mei Wah restaurant in Chevy Chase at 11 a.m. You might also get to see fellow Nighthawk Randy "White Chocolate" Gill, who's been on various streetball TV shows. He's the short guy in the picture, at 6' 2".
For those unfamiliar with the league, which is not related to the funky ABA from the 1970s, this ABA is a smaller pro league with some weird rules, like a four point shot, and is recovering from a host of problems -- namely granting expansion teams to anybody who had $10,000, resulting in a lot of teams folding before the season ended. They brought in former Pistons and current "Best Damn Sports Show Period" star John Salley as commissioner to get the league on better footing.
But Nighthawks owner and league COO Tom Doyle doesn't want to stop with one giant - he'd like to sign Muresan and 7' 6" Manute Bol for the world's biggest (and probably slowest) frontcourt. "I can also bring in some random 7-4 guys," he told the Washington Times. "They are all over the place. It is a way to get some media attention." Thanks to an ABA rule for a guest 11th player rule, Muresan, Bol, and other celebrities like Adalius Thomas from the Ravens have played for the Nighthawks so far.
Sun previously played for the Dodge City Legend of the US Basketball League, but his stats were less than impressive - 1.2 points and 1.2 rebounds per game. You'd think a guy a foot taller than anybody else could collect a few caroms here and there and dunk on somebody besides Jimmy Kimmel.
Besides being gigundo, Sun has led a pretty eventful life. Like many other very tall people, he suffers from Acromegaly, a pituitary disorder that results in extended growth. He also had a brain tumor and sought help to pay for an operation from donors. After the operation, he returned to hoops. He'll be fighting Chris Tucker in "Rush Hour 3," and now he might take some four point shots in Rockville.
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