Gheorghe Mureșan

Gheorghe Dumitru Mureşan ( born February 14, 1971 in Tritenii de Jos, Cluj County ) is a retired Romanian professional basketball player.

With a height of 231 cm, it is next to Manute Bol the greatest player who has ever played in the NBA. As with Bol his parents are of average size, but the enormous body size at Mureşan by a growth disorder, a malfunction of the pituitary gland was caused.

Life

Mureşan was born in a poor family in Cluj County. He began with the basketball at the age of 14 years when he was at a dentist, who was also a basketball coach and he suggested the sport. He studied and played at the Babeş -Bolyai University of Cluj basketball.

In the U-19 World Basketball Championship in 1991 in Edmonton, he led the Romanian national team to fifth place. He finished the tournament as the best rebounder from ( 11.4 per game) and second-best points scorer ( 23.4 per game). He went through these services and its exceptional body size the attention of European Talentsichtern up and played the 1992-1993 season with Pau - Orthez Élan Béarnais in the Ligue Nationale de Basket in France. In November 1992 he scored his Karrierebestmarke of 42 points in a game against Sweden. He was immediately there to be a crowd pleaser.

In 1993, he signed up for the NBA Draft and was selected as 30 players from the Washington Bullets. Despite offers of European basketball greats like FC Barcelona and AEK Athens he finally decided for a change in the NBA. He chose the jersey number 77 on the basis of his height (7 feet, 7 inches are equal to 231 cm). In his first two seasons, he showed his potential, but he was repeatedly thrown back by injuries.

For the beginning of the 1995/96 season he returned to France and played 8 games for EB Pau Orthez, before he returned to the Washington Bullets and 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 brought him winning the NBA Most Improved Player Award. The 1997/98 season he had to completely suspend due to problems with the tendons in his right ankle. In 1998, he signed a contract for two years with the New Jersey Nets. He played in only 31 games in two years and retired after the 1999/2000 season of the NBA. He returned to France and was still playing a season with EB Pau Orthez, before he finally fully retired from professional basketball.

In 2006, he finally played a game for the Maryland Nighthawks of the American Basketball Association.

Others

In 1998, he starred in the comedy film My Giant - Two on a large walking alongside Billy Crystal. He also played in 1999 a ventriloquist in the video My Name Is by Eminem.

Mureşan runs his own basketball school "Giant Basketball Academy ".