Why is shaq so tall

He recorded the highest maximum vertical reach ever measured in pre-draft workouts. He could extend 12 feet, 5 inches from a standing position. Shaq had handles, but Dream had a little bit better handles. According to Phil Jackson Kobe was slightly taller while Jordan was stronger, more athletic, and had bigger hands.

You are a combination of the genes of your mother and your father. Your father is not taller than your father. So you have no reasonable expectation to be taller than he is. Your mother is not only not taller than your father, she is in fact significantly shorter than your father. By doing this, he apparently increased his vertical leap by 12 dunking inches.

Whether that is folklore or not, calf raises are an effective way to add some coil and recoil into your jump. At this height you will need to jump around 23 inches to touch the rim and 29 inches to dunk a full sized basketball. Originally Answered: Can a 5 foot 6 person dunk?

Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment. His parents are not over 7 feet like him, but they definitely are taller than average.

Both his mother and father stand at 6 feet and 2 inches. He has two teenage sons who play basketball — Shareef and Shaqir.

Shareef is 6 feet 11 inches while Shaquir is 6 feet 5 inches. Here is some information from the analysis of the anthropometric data height, weight and age from the basketball participants at the London Olympic Games.

Basketballers were the tallest on average of all Olympic Games athletes. The tallest male athlete of all Olympic athletes stood at 2. Here is average data from the analysis of the anthropometric data of the basketball players at the Rio Olympic Games.

Most college scouts overlooked two-time league MVP, Steph Curry, largely due to his slight build and small frame. As a high school senior, Steph was only 6-foot tall and rail-thin. This can be tough on young players with parents who are below six feet in height since how tall you are is largely dependent on genetics.

Take the story of Nate Robinson. He was measured at 5'9" going into his sophomore year of high school. Unfortunately, this never happened. Even though there have been some very short players like Nate Robinson, Muggsy Bogues, and Spud Webb who made it into the NBA, these players possessed athleticism that was out of this world. The truth is that the probability of making it into the NBA if you are under six feet is very slim.

Below are some NBA players who had relatively short parents no taller than 5'10" but were still able to make it past 6'2". There is no doubt that these players' careers would have been different had they not grown as tall as they did. Michael Jordan is arguably the greatest NBA player of all time.

However, the 6'6" former Chicago Bulls star did not come from a family of giants. In fact, none of his immediate family members were above six feet in height.

His dad was no more than 5'9", and his mom was around 5'5". It is not surprising that Jordan was not very tall during his early years. This is contrary to his best teammate Scottie Pippen whose mum stood at 6'0" and dad at 6'1". Pippen probably knew from an early age that he was destined to be at least 6'2" whilst Jordan might have been filled with uncertainty.

This uncertainty forced the young Jordan to experiment with some crazy ideas in the hopes of getting taller. He would hang onto the pullup bars in the playground in the backyard each day to try to grow taller. His mother even suggested he put salt in his shoes and say a prayer every night seeing how desperate he was to grow tall. When Michael Jordan entered E. At his high school, MJ played basketball, football, and baseball.

He had grown to a height of 5'11" his sophomore year of high school. This made him taller than his two older brothers. Jordan's height of 5'11" which though quite taller than the average height for his age at the time was still considered short by basketball standards.

He and his childhood friend, Harvest Leroy Smith, tried out for the lone sophomore opening on the varsity basketball team. Smith, who was 6'7", was selected because of his height, while the 5'11" Jordan was sent to the JV basketball team by coach Clifton "Pop" Herring. This would serve as the motivation he needed to work harder. Michael would miraculously grow to 6'3" the following summer before finally beating all expectations to reach his adult height of 6'6".

Michael had an older cousin who was 6'7" and lived with the family briefly while he was in high school, working on basketball with the younger boys. This is proof that there were genes for tallness somewhere in his family line. Michael was just very lucky to have inherited those genes. Imagine what a gem the game of basketball would have lost had he not.

MJ admits that his toughest opponent to date was his brother, Larry Jordan. He says Larry could have been a better player than himself had he grown past 5'8".

Jeffrey Jordan stands at 6'1" and Marcus Jordan stands at 6'2". The point guard for the Houston Rockets is a tad bit on the shorter side at 6'3". He is still certainly taller than the average person and is much taller than his parents. His father, Russell Westbrook Jr. His mother, Shannon Horton, is around 5'7" which is quite tall for a woman. It is highly likely Russell inherited his tall genes from his mom's side of the family. The NBA star had a rather large growth spurt during high school.

None of the major camps or elite AAU squads extended invitations to the 5'10" sophomore. Before his senior year, Russell had shot up five inches and his game had greatly improved. He had reached his full adult height of 6'3" by the time he started playing at UCLA. Russell's younger and only brother, Raynard Westbrook, stands at only around 5'6" and goes to show how lucky Russell Westbrook was to have inherited the right genes for height from his family as he will clearly be nowhere near the player he is today if he didn't grow past 5'8".

Being of Asian descent, it is no surprise that both of his parents are under six feet tall. His mom and dad both stand at 5'6". The former Golden State Warriors player has admitted that he used to blame his dad for being short.

This was because he stood at only 5'3" when he was Jeremy would eventually reach his adult height of 6'3" and has since apologised to his father. His maternal grandmother's family was tall, and her father was over 6'0". This may account for where Jeremy got his height from. He was very lucky to have inherited tall genes from that side of his family because his two brothers, Joseph, and Josh Lin, are below 6'0".

His younger brother, Joseph Lin, is next tallest at around 5'11" and currently plays in Taiwan's Super Basketball League.

Gordon Hayward currently plays for the Boston Celtics. He played college basketball at Butler University for two seasons where he led his team to a runner-up finish in the NCAA Tournament during his sophomore season. It had always been the dream of Gordon to play in the NBA since age 5. Because of this, he focussed on building the skills that would set him up for success as a guard.

According to sports commentator Pat Forde, Hayward's father "continually pushed his son to develop a guard's skill set," believing he was destined to be of average size. He trained him to be the best ball handler, outside shooter, and facilitator he could be.

Hayward's unusual skill set was largely the result of his father's misconception about his future growth. Forde refers to Hayward as "The guy who learned how to play like a guard but now has the size of a power forward.

He and his twin sister, Heather, both starred at tennis and were a fantastic mixed doubles pair. Gordon's first appearance in the sports pages was not in basketball but in tennis. However, his mother persuaded him to stay with basketball for one more year. Some may call it serendipity, others divine intervention. Either way, Gordon had an unexpected growth spurt that changed the course of his career. He shot up to 6'4" as a sophomore. Two years after he almost abandoned basketball, he had grown to 6'7" 2.

He reached 6'8" 2. Suddenly, the kid who was a solid guard had turned into an incredible, unique swingman with a guard skill set. He almost turned into a different player overnight. Wilt Chamberlain is widely considered to be one of the greatest and most dominant players in NBA history. It is hard to believe that Wilt, who was 7'1", was conceived by parents who were of average height but that was the case. Wilt's dad, William Chamberlain, was only 5'8".

His mom, Olivia Ruth Johnson, stood at 5'9". Olivia Johnson used to tell young Wilt stories of her grandfather who was a farmer and stood at around 7'0". This might explain where Wilt got his unusual height from. The family had tall genes because one of his brothers, Wilbert Chamberlain, also grew to 6'5". The only player to score points in a single NBA game was already six feet tall at age He was 6'11" when he entered Philadelphia's Overbrook High School and had a strong advantage over his peers.

Despite his overall dominance, Wilt was very terrible at free-throw shooting. During his career, he missed 5, free throws. Amazingly, he never fouled out of an NBA game. Moses Malone had significantly small hands for his height of 6'10".

Moses Malone is regarded as the greatest offensive rebounder of all time. His mom stood at a mere 5'2". Only his hands seemed a result of that union for he had incredibly small hands for a man of 6'10". He could palm the ball but couldn't dunk and control the ball like so many small guards.

Because of this, Tom Nissalke, the Rockets' coach, gave him a series of hand-stretching exercises, like those for a pianist. His teammate Rick Barry once joked that if his hands were proportionate to his body, the league would have to outlaw him.

It was probably due to the fact that he had to work extra hard to overcome this limitation which ironically resulted in him being one of the game's best rebounders. He had reached his full height when he was 19 and was one of the most sought-after college basketball prospects in history. He became the first player to enter professional basketball directly from high school.

Gheorghe Muresan with his two sons, George and Victor. The other is Manute Bol, and they both stood at 7'7". Gheorghe did not get his height from his parents. His dad is 5'9," and his mom is 5'7". Manute Bol, on the other hand, came from a family of extraordinarily tall people.

Bol's mom was 6'10", his dad was 6'8", and his sister was also 6'8". Manute's great-grandfather was even taller at 7'10". His ethnic group, the Dinka, and the Nilotic people of which they are a part of, are among the taller populations of the world.

Almost immediately after he was selected in the second round of the NBA draft by Washington, he underwent surgery to eliminate the tumor on his pituitary gland.