List of Top 7 Tallest NBA Players
The NBA has been home to some truly remarkable athletes. Meet the 7 tallest players in basketball history and learn what made them stand out.
Basketball is a sport where being tall helps a lot. A tall player can block shots, score near the basket, and grab the ball more easily than shorter players.
The NBA is the biggest and most popular basketball league in the world. It is based in the United States. Over the years, the NBA has had some of the tallest athletes on the planet.
To understand how tall these players are, think about this. The average adult man in India is around 5 feet 5 inches tall. The players on this list were more than 2 feet taller than that.
One interesting fact before we start. A Japanese player named Yasutaka Okayama was 7 feet 8 inches tall. The Golden State Warriors selected him in the 1981 NBA Draft. But he never actually played a single game in the NBA. This shows that height alone is not enough to make it to the top.
List of Tallest Players in NBA History
| S. No | Player | Height | Country |
| 1 | Gheorghe Muresan | 7 ft 7 in (2.31 m) | Romania |
| 2 | Manute Bol | Just under 7 ft 7 in | Sudan |
| 3 | Shawn Bradley | 7 ft 6 in (2.29 m) | USA |
| 3 | Tacko Fall | 7 ft 6 in (2.29 m) | Senegal |
| 3 | Yao Ming | 7 ft 6 in (2.29 m) | China |
| 6 | Chuck Nevitt | 7 ft 5 in (2.26 m) | USA |
| 6 | Mark Eaton | 7 ft 4 in (2.24 m) | USA |
1. Gheorghe Muresan
Gheorghe Muresan is the tallest player in NBA history as per the Guinness World Records. He stands at 231 cm or 7 feet 7 inches tall.
Many people think Manute Bol was the same height. But Guinness World Records measured Bol in the 1980s and found that he was just a little shorter than 231 cm. So Muresan holds the record officially.
He was picked by the Washington Bullets as the 30th pick in the 1993 NBA Draft. He was a good scorer for such a big man. In the 1995-96 season, he scored 14.5 points per game and made 58.5 percent of his shots. He won the NBA Most Improved Player award that year.
His career average was 9.8 points and 6.4 rebounds per game. Injuries forced him to stop playing after just 307 games.
2. Manute Bol
Manute Bol is listed at 7 feet 7 inches in most NBA records. But as mentioned above, Guinness World Records found that he was just slightly shorter than Muresan when measured in the 1980s. Even so, he is one of the two tallest players in NBA history.
Bol was not known for scoring. He was known for blocking shots. In his very first season in 1985-86, he led the entire NBA in blocks with 5.0 blocks per game. He finished second in the Defensive Player of the Year voting as a rookie.
His career average of 3.3 blocks per game is the second highest in NBA history. Only Mark Eaton has a higher career blocks average.
3. Shawn Bradley
Shawn Bradley was born on March 22, 1972 in Landstuhl, West Germany. His family was at a US military base there at the time. He was picked second overall in the 1993 NBA Draft by the Philadelphia 76ers.
He played 12 seasons in the NBA. In 832 games, he averaged 8.1 points, 6.3 rebounds, and 2.5 blocks per game. He led the whole league in blocks in 1997. He wore jersey number 76 with the 76ers as a fun reference to his height of 7 feet 6 inches.
After retiring, Bradley became a teacher and counsellor at a school for young people who needed extra support.
4. Tacko Fall
Tacko Fall was born in Dakar, the capital city of Senegal in West Africa. He came to the United States to study and play college basketball at the University of Central Florida.
At 7 feet 6 inches, he is tied with Shawn Bradley and Yao Ming as the third tallest players in NBA history. The Boston Celtics signed him in 2019. He was never a regular starting player but he became very popular with fans because of his great height and friendly personality.
He played his last NBA games for the Cleveland Cavaliers in 2021-22 before moving to play basketball in other countries.
His story is inspiring. He grew up in Senegal and only started playing basketball seriously when he was a teenager. Yet he worked hard enough to reach the NBA, the best basketball league in the world.
5. Yao Ming
Yao Ming was born on September 12, 1980 in Shanghai, China. The Houston Rockets picked him as the first overall choice in the 2002 NBA Draft.
Yao Ming is the most successful player on this list. He is the tallest player ever to be inducted into the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. He was selected for the NBA All-Star game in all eight of his seasons. He averaged 19.0 points and 9.2 rebounds per game in his career.
What made Yao special was not just his height. He could shoot from the middle of the court, pass to teammates, and score even when defenders were pushing him.
Yao broke bones in his legs and feet many times during his career. The damage became so bad that he had to retire in July 2011. He was only 30 years old at the time. He was inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame in 2016.
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