Gheorghe Mureșan

2.31m, 150 kg and size 58 shoes. Coming from a family where no one was taller than 1.83m (his father measured 1.76m and his mother 1.70m), Gheorghe Muresan suffered from gigantism. These extraordinary measurements made the Romanian the tallest player to have played in the NBA.

He began his career in Pau Orthez, in France after having started basketball by chance. "I had never played (basketball) before I was 14," he told Sports Illustrated. "I knew nothing at all of the sport. My mother took me to Cluj to see a dentist, who was a basketball referee in his spare time. He looked at me and asked how tall I was. Then he asked me my age. He did not believe I was 14 years old. He called the coach of Romania's national basketball team. They asked me to stay in Cluj and join their team. I stayed that night and I never went back home."

Consequently, he had a six-year NBA career where he wore the number 77, the equivalent of his height in feet and inches (7'7). A real success although somewhat under the radar. Unpretentious, but with ambition, Gheorghe Dumitru Muresan became a name known and recognized, beyond the scope of basketball fans. Assurely Ghidza - a contraction of Gheorghe and Godzilla - is huge!