Gheorghe Mureșan
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| Player information | ||
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| Full name | Gheorghe Dumitru Mureșan | |
| Nickname | Ghiță | |
| birthday | 14th February 1971 (age 49) | |
| place of birth | Tritenii de Jos , Romania | |
| size | 231 cm | |
| Weight | 137 kg | |
| position | center | |
| college | Cluj | |
| NBA draft | 1993 , 30th Pick, Washington Bullets | |
| Clubs as active | ||
| 1992-1993 |
 EB Pau-Orthez
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| 1993-1995 |
 Washington Bullets
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| 1995 |
EB Pau-Orthez
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| 1995-1998 |
Washington Bullets
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| 1998-2000 |
New Jersey Nets
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| 2000-2001 |
EB Pau-Orthez
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| 2007 |
Maryland Nighthawks
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| National team | ||
 Romania
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Gheorghe Dumitru Mureșan ( , born February 14, 1971 in Tritenii de Jos , Cluj County ) is a former Romanian basketball player .
At eight feet tall, he's the tallest player to ever play in the NBA , ahead of Manute Bol . As with Bol, his parents are of average height, but Mureșan's enormous height was caused by a growth disorder, a malfunction of the pituitary gland .
career
Mureșan was born into a poor family in Cluj County. He started playing basketball at the age of 14 when he was with a dentist who was also a basketball coach and suggested the sport to him. He studied and played basketball at the Babes Bolyai University in Cluj .
At the U-19 World Basketball Championship in Edmonton in 1991 , he led the Romanian national team to fifth place. He finished the tournament as the best rebounder (11.4 per game) and the second best point collector (23.4 per game). He drew the attention of European talent scouts through these performances and his extraordinary height and played the 1992-1993 season with Élan Béarnais Pau-Orthez in the Ligue Nationale de Basket in France. In November 1992, he achieved his career high of 42 points in a game against Sweden . He immediately became a crowd-pleaser there.
In 1993 he signed up for the NBA draft and was selected as the 30th player by the Washington Bullets . Despite offers from major European basketball players such as FC Barcelona and AEK Athens , he finally decided to switch to the NBA. He chose jersey number 77 based on his height (7 feet , 7 inches correspond to 231 cm). In his first two seasons he showed his potential, but he was repeatedly set back from injuries.
For the beginning of the 1995/96 season he returned to France and played 8 games for EB Pau-Orthez before returning to the Washington Bullets or Wizards. He improved his stats to an average of 14.5 points, 9.6 rebounds and 2.3 blocks per game in 29.5 minutes. This increase earned him the NBA Most Improved Player Award . He had to sit out the 1997/98 season completely due to problems with the tendons on his right ankle. In 1998 he signed a two-year contract with the New Jersey Nets . He played in just 52 games in two years.
After the 1999/2000 season he tried it in the summer training camps of the Dallas Mavericks and Utah Jazz , but received no contract and left the NBA. He returned to France and played another season with EB Pau-Orthez, but could not finish the season there without injuries. He paused for the next 2 years to recover physically.
In November 2002 he tried a comeback for the Romanian national team. In the first game against Austria he scored 24 points and 13 rebounds. There followed 5 more, less successful games in which he could no longer physically keep up. Eventually he withdrew completely from professional basketball.
In March 2007, he finally played one more game for the Maryland Nighthawks in the American Basketball Association , as part of the biggest starting five in basketball history.
Others
In 1998 he starred in the comedy movie My Giant alongside Billy Crystal . He also played in 1999 a ventriloquist in the music video for My Name Is by Eminem .
Mureșan runs his own basketball school "Giant Basketball Academy" in Loudon County in the US state of Virginia .
Web links
- Gheorghe Mureșan - player profile on basketball-reference.com
- Gheorghe Mureșan - player profile on NBA.com
- Gheorghe Mureşan in the Internet Movie Database (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ Luke Norris: What Happened to Gheorghe Muresan, the Tallest Player in NBA History? In: Sportscasting | Pure Sports. April 8, 2020, accessed April 26, 2020 (American English).
- ↑ Land Of The Giants. Retrieved April 26, 2020 (American English).
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Mureșan, Gheorghe |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Mureșan, Gheorghe Dimitriu |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Romanian basketball player |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 14, 1971 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Tritenii de Jos , Cluj County , Romania |