Curtis Johnson. 7'5" 300+
Biggest I've ever seen. I thought he was 7'3.
Yeah, 7'3" . not sure why I thought he was bigger. He played great one game at the garden. I can't remember against who though..
I always hope my team can find someone of that size for the 13th ride. Lets face it - the 13th guy on the roster is highly unlikely to every actually impact a game in terms of wins and losses. His value is really, is he decent practice fodder. Be he 6'0 of 6'8, if he's slow with limited talent, he's not going to swing a game one way or another But a 6'10 or bigger kid or a 260 lb or bigger kid (or one who's both)? SOMETIME in his 4 years, there's going to be ONE game - maybe even a couple, where a close game simply needs size in the middle and 5 fouls to give without it becoming an old fashioned 3 pt play to get or preserve a win. Thats when a true big - even a "not so talented one" can mean a win. Coach Lavin learned that his first year as a coach, when an injury left him with no one over 6'8 to go to against a Minnesota team with two 7 footers once Jelani McCoy went down with an injury in the Elite 8. Didn't need skill. Didn't need shooting. Didn't need speed. All that was needed was a big body to hold their big away from the basket or send him to the line without getting a close shot off first (3 pt play). Didn't have the body, and Steve's best shot at a title ended in the Elite 8. He later took grief for accepting a transfer student of very limited skill named John Hoffart - "not a UCLA level Player". But Hoff WAS a deans list student (smart), and 6'11 275. And Steve got him to WALK ON. As it turned out, he was never needed - but he WAS there to bang bodies in practice for two years with a raw kid named Ryan Hollins - and because of that Hollins improved to the point he was MVP of the NCAA western Regional in 2006, and put up a double/double in the NCAA title game. You can't teach size is one of the TRUEST axions in sport....
I hope we can find one. They ARE out there. Ben Howland very quietly got TWO of them (one 6'10 245, the other 6'10 220) to walk on this year, in addition to his #1 ranked class. One a raw spaniard who was injured as a hs Jr., and limited his sr year, but with a pretty good bloodline - he's the younger brother of Pau and Marc Gasol. The other is a 10pt/8reb JC center from Iran, who I can't figure out WHY he's walking on - he HAD to have had decent D-1 Scholarship offers (check out his video and let me know if, while not a Pac 12 or Big East, he doesn't look like a mid D-1 post player....
Sooren Derboghosian Pakajaki