Sun Ming Ming

[artestfighttrainer]

Interesting Read

He's a giant. Has stamina probs but he's working on it. Wonder how Yao, Shaq and others will handle him if he makes it to the NBA. If he owns that 8 foot player from Iran is going to be signed to take him on.

[J@3]

Old old old old story. All of the Asians here thought he'd be a superstar at around this time last season.

[Its_asdf]

Height means nothing if you suck monkey balls and posess no other good qualities in your game. Just ask Shawn Bradley.

[Jing]

lol I actually expected sung to be at best at a really low minor league level.

really, really, really old article.

[BOSS]

Like everyone said old story man.
Seems like his career is done.
Heart problems had hit Sun Ming Ming for for quite sometime.

[Fitzy]

yeh this has been posted before, its incredible someone could get that big without having some sort of mental problem, just look at him grip the ball

[maes]

He can play 5 minutes before he's so winded he has to sub out.

Forget about him. Shawn Kemp could probably run circles around this guy, much less the Dirks and KGs.

[funk99]

Man this guy is hella huge. If he could get somewhere in the NBA, it would be a great achievement.

[Null17]

I'm an Asian and I thought he was destined to fail.

[Amphatoast]

CHEVY CHASE, Md. (AP) -- The "have size, will travel" basketball odyssey that's taken 7-foot-9, 370-pound Sun Ming Ming from China to California to Kansas to North Carolina made its latest stop Wednesday in the back room of a Chinese restaurant in this tony Washington, D.C., suburb.

That's where the Maryland Nighthawks of the American Basketball Association introduced their newest player, a man they're touting as the tallest in the history of professional basketball.

Sun donned a uniform with the number 79 -- Get it? -- and his new team's owner and coach and a teammate all gushed about his "basketball IQ" and "soft hands."

The 23-year-old -- who complained the XXXXXXL sweat shirt the team gave him was too small -- was asked what his goals are.

"I hope," Sun said, "I make the NBA some day."

To which Nighthawks owner and ABA chief operating officer Tom Doyle said: "I'm quite sure he will."

Really? After all, Sun hasn't played organized basketball in more than six months, since a brief stint with the Dodge City Legend of the United States Basketball League.

Turns out, the NBA doesn't overlook 7-footers.

"We will monitor his progress. His name has cropped up, but since he's never really played, I don't know how he can be on our radar," Marty Blake, the NBA's director of scouting, said in a telephone interview. "We would be interested in a player of some repute anywhere in the world, especially one who's 7-9. ... As (former Utah Jazz coach) Frank Layden always said, 'You can't teach height."'

Sun moved from his native China -- where he played on a second-division team -- to California about 1 1/2 years ago in hopes of making it in pro hoops. His career was put on hold last year while he had two operations for a pituitary tumor that led to his extraordinary size but threatened his life.

Sun said those procedures were successful and he's getting into shape. Doyle noted that his big addition needed extra training after taking time away from the court to shoot a fight scene in Jackie Chan's upcoming "Rush Hour 3."

"That was very fun," Sun said.

Nighthawks coach William Rankin expects Sun to be able to play about 28-30 minutes a game; his debut comes Saturday. That will also be Rankin's debut with the Nighthawks -- he was hired about a week ago from a junior college team.

"When I interviewed for the job, I asked, 'Do we have a 7-footer?"' Rankin recounted. "And (Doyle) laughed and said, 'We have someone who's almost an 8-footer."'

Sun has been in town about 1 1/2 weeks, working out daily with Nighthawks guard Randy Gill, who said of his new center: "Every day, somebody's going to get dunked on."

Doyle is big on Bill Veeck-style marketing, and he's hoping to organize an exhibition game with nearly-as-tall-as-Sun former NBA players Gheorghe Muresan and Manute Bol to raise money toward Sun's more than $100,000 in medical bills.

Did the Nighthawks want Sun more for his ability to play basketball or to draw crowds (the team averages about 600 spectators in its 1,000-capacity Montgomery College gym in Rockville)?

"There's no question that having Ming here sells tickets," Doyle said. "But there also is no question that having him here is a huge presence in our middle."

[url=http://sports.yahoo.com/nba/news?slug=ap-tallestplayer&prov=ap&type=lgns]
sun is back[/url]

[Axel]

Never was, never will be.

[Dan's Brain]

$100,000 in medical bills.

that's gotta be an alarm bell.

All the best to him, i'm pretty sure that he'll never step onto an NBA court, but he will sell a heck of a lot of something. He'll probably get a lot of endorsement offers though.

[BZ]

Anyone catch his guest appearance on Jimmy Kimmel's show? He missed a dunk attempt... sadness, for a guy that's 7'9.

[Jing]

Just get off his back already, he's never going to achieve any fame, he couldn't even make it in the ABA or whatnot. So whats there to discuss. Drop it.