Life as a professional athlete brings plenty of unwelcome attention. But many basketball players started getting stares when they were still in their early teens
When Paul Mokeski traveled to China several years ago to teach a month-long basketball clinic, he says he couldn’t help but feel like Godzilla. For the 7ft former NBA center, who played 12 years in the league, many of them on a Milwaukee Bucks team that battled Larry Bird’s Boston Celtics in the Eastern Conference finals, it was a familiar feeling. People would come out of stores and point as if they were seeing a giant from a storybook. “That’s all part of the gig when you’re as tall as I am,” says Mokeski.
For decades, when it came to the NBA, height was king. And while that trend has diminished some, thanks to players like Steph Curry and his “small ball” Golden State Warriors team, players of Mokeski’s stature are hardly a rarity in the NBA. But to be 7ft in the wider world is a different matter. Some estimates show that there are fewer than 3,000 seven-footers in the entire world. And that means for people like Mokeski, life is often defined by being super visible. “I don’t know any other way,” he says with a laugh.