He would look down at 7-foot-7 Gheorghe Muresan, tower over 7-2 Dikembe Mutombo and dwarf 6-10 Vitaly Potapenko.
Ri Myong Hun is that big.The North Korean is 7 feet, 9 inches tall and supposedly the owner of solid basketball skills. Hun, whose full name is pronounced Ree MEE-yong Hun, wants to play in the NBA.
"I believe that he will play here at some time. The question is when," said Michael F. Coyne, Hun's Cleveland-based representative.
Hun, who would be the tallest player in league history, was "discovered" last August in Taiwan while playing in the William Jones Cup, a major Asian sporting event.
It was North Korea's first time competing in the event, and because the country does not participate in the Olympics, Hun caught everyone by surprise.
And not just because he could dunk the basketball while standing flat-footed.
Displaying a nice shooting touch, Hun made the all-tournament team, shot nearly 80 percent from the foul line and in one game made a 3-pointer.
Against a U.S. Jones Cup Team coached by Wake Forest assistants Ernie Nestor and Russell Turner, Hun scored 29 points and made all 12 of his free throws. Nestor and Turner nicknamed Hun "Chopstick," because he was so hard to handle.
The Wake coaches, who have watched 6-foot-10 All-American center Tim Duncan on an almost daily basis for past four years, were impressed.
"They consider him a player, not just a freak," said Coyne, a private attorney working with Cleveland's Evergreen International on the Hun project. "They say he's got an attitude, that he's surly on the court and that he wants to be in every play."
In a letter of support for Hun's NBA aspirations, Nestor wrote:
"He has great agility for someone so tall. I was impressed by the muscular development of his legs and his touch was outstanding. I cannot imagine (Washington Bullets center) Gheorghe Muresan being very far ahead of "Chopstick," given the strong development of his legs, his touch and ability to run the floor. These qualities are especially remarkable for a man coming from North Korea, where coaching, nutrition and other factors are so far behind the Western world. He is an interesting prospect given the NBA's premium on size, and I think he can be successful."
Muresan, who has turned into a solid NBA player, could hardly move up and down the court when league scouts first saw him, and 7-7 Manute Bol never became anything more than a sideshow during his nine years in the NBA.
Turner wrote that Hun was far ahead of those two: "He is more advanced than other really tall players I've seen in the NBA. He runs reasonably well, can catch the ball, has very good hands and a well-developed touch around the basket."
One difference between Hun and Bol is that Bol was extremely thin from top to bottom. Despite trying every weight-gain program known to man, he never became big enough to handle the NBA's pushing and shoving.
Hun, though his upper body needs development, has thick, strong legs. That's important because of the premium the NBA places on a big man's ability to establish and maintain offensive position in the low post.
Because videotapes of Hun's games do not exist, Nestor and Turner are two of the few knowledgeable basketball people outside of North Korea who have seen him play.
But word about huge men spreads fast in the NBA. News of Hun's desire to play in America was released Wednesday. Coyne said the Cavaliers contacted him within two days.
"He's a big rascal," a smiling Cavaliers coach Mike Fratello said about Hun.
Assistant coach Ron Rothstein added: "I've heard that he's big and fairly athletic."
Coyne said Hun is 27 years old "give or take a year." The indecision is because in Korea, all newborn babies turn 2 on Jan. 1. So even a child born on December 31 would turn 2 the next day.
Hun is too old to play in NCAA basketball, so the NBA is his only option.
He probably would already be in America were it not for the strained relationship between the United States and North Korea. Since the end of the Korean War in 1953, the United States has imposed economic sanctions against North Korea. Therefore, Hun is not allowed to enter the U.S.
But recent talks between U.S. and North Korean diplomats have Coyne and Hun hoping he'll be coming to America soon.
"His bags are packed. He's taking English-training sessions and he's ready to leave," Coyne said.
The political implications of Hun playing in the NBA would be great. The North Korean government is hoping that America's acceptance of him will improve relations between the countries, similar to the way a group of Chinese ping-pong players eased tensions between the U.S. and China in the 1970s.
"He's a role model in North Korea," Coyne said. "People over there are hoping that he gets here and Americans see what a good guy he is and start to feel better about the people of North Korea."
With Coyne being in Cleveland, Hun would be stationed here. After allowing him to get acclimated to his new environment, Coyne would begin letting NBA scouts take a look.
Of course, the Cavs would be first. "They want to find out about him," Coyne said.
For years, Coyne has traveled throughout East Africa helping young African men get into American or Canadian universities and high schools. He became associated with Hun after he brought a 7-footer from Tanzania to Wake Forest.
After finding out about Coyne's frequent trips into the Third World, Nestor and Turner told him about "Chopstick." Shortly thereafter, Coyne contacted Hun and began working on fulfilling his American dream.