7 foot 9 Sun Mingming

Sun Mingming is a 7 foot 9 basketball player currently playing in the Japanese basketball league. He’s a 26 year old Chinese player from Harbin, China and weighs around 360 pounds. His early career was not the easiest for this young player blessed with incredible height:

Sun Mingming came to the United States in early 2005 to train for a possible career in the NBA. He was declared eligible in the 2005 NBA Draft, and had a brief tryout with the Los Angeles Lakers, but was not selected in the draft.

In the summer of 2005, Sun Mingming discovered that he had a benign brain tumor attached to his pituitary gland that was stimulating the over-production of growth hormone, a potentially fatal condition known as acromegaly. Because he had neither health insurance nor enough money to pay for the more than $100,000 in medical bills, his agent, Charles Bonsignore, started a fund raiser to raise the necessary funds. The tumor was successfully removed on September 26, 2005.

Since then Sun Mingming has worked hard trying to get back into the NBA playing in numerous leagues across the world. Cleveland Cavaliers scout Robert Pierce has claimed that Sun possesses good shooting and passing skills. If Sun Mingming does manage to make it in the NBA it would officially make him the tallest player to have ever played in the NBA ahead of Manute Bol, Shawn Bradley, and Yao Ming.

7 foot 9 Sun Mingming

In his latest season with the Hamamatsu Phoenix, Mingming averaged 20 minutes per game shooting 63.6% from the Field, 54.7% from the free-throw line, grabbed 6 boards per game, handed out 0.6 assists, blocked 0.7 shots and collected 2.3 personal fouls.

Mingming also has been active off the court, including starring in Rush Hour 3 and has appeared on the Jimmy Kimmel show where there was footage of him missing a dunk.

From his official site, sevenfootnine.com, we find out the answer to the question on most of our minds:

Can you dunk without jumping? How high is your standing reach?

My reach is a couple of inches shy of 10 feet, but when I get on my toes I can reach the goal…and I do have to jump just a little bit to dunk

It will be interesting keeping an eye on 7 foot 9 basketball player Sun Mingming because with his height, and with  just a bit more skill and stamina, he could prove to be a very interesting player in the NBA.