Remembering Manute

I assume you've heard by now of the passing of Manute Bol. For younger readers of the blog, Bol was one of the tallest players in the history of the NBA, and most assuredly its skinniest. According to the good people at Basketball Reference, Manute played at the measurements of 7'6" and 200 pounds, which means he carried just over 2 pounds of person for every inch of height. I want you to roll that around in your mind, really; that a human being could exist in that proportion, and play over 600 games in the NBA in 10 years without being, well, killed. Compared to Manute, Shawn Bradley was a muscleman, and Yao Ming was a sumo.

By almost any normal measurement of what humanity should be, Bol was impossible. Even bone should weigh more than two pounds an inch, really. By the way, take another look at that photo of him next to super-small teammate and fellow benchie Muggsy Bogues. Bogues is, for the record, my height. They often played together as part of the then-Bullets' Send In The Insanity bench work. It didn't win games, but it did stay with the eyes.

Manute is the only NBA player ever -- ever -- to have more blocked shots than points (2,086 to 1,599). Considering that the man made 43 three pointers, and that there's no play in basketball that gives you three blocked shots at once... well, like many things involving Manute, it made no sense.

I got to watch three years of Manute's NBA career as a Sixers season ticket holder, and it never, ever got past the point of sideshow. Part of this was that no one much imagined him as anything more than that; in his 624 games, he had only 133 starts, and averaged less than 19 minutes a game, and that average went down in his last six years in the league. The problem was simple; for all of his spidery length, Manute wasn't a very good rebounder, mostly because he might have had the worst hands to ever get paid to play pro hoop. Like many big men, he was borderline hopeless from the free throw line (career, a 56% shooter). Unlike them, he wasn't even a high percentage shooter, since he lacked the strength and body to even go strong on a dunk. So no matter what you did with him, you played 4-on-5 on offense. The only way it worked was when he'd block a shot, leading to a fast break where he wouldn't have to cross half court.

But oh, my, the defense.

Manute led the league in block percentage for everything but his last two years in the league. (And if you think he was something, imagine what he was like in his lone year in college, at small school Bridgeport after recruiting weirdness: over 7 blocks a game.) There might not have been a better man ever at getting a block from the weak side. The refs gave him the benefit of the doubt on any borderline goaltending call, probably because they were struck by the same spectacle that everyone else was... that this human arachnid had just done the sole thing that he was put on this earth to do, and that it just seemed wrong to deny it.

Like any good spider, Manute's success led to more chances, as any number of flies wanted to put him on their poster. He seemed to enjoy that part of the game, with a ready smile that was all the more striking when set against the relentless ebony of his skin. When photographed in Sports Illustrated in just his swimming trunks, the water refracting his body, it looked in no way human.

How good of a guy was he? Three of his four teams brought him back for a second stint. I can't think of a bigger testament to how much fun he was to have around. Don Nelson had a special jones for him, owing to his affinity for freakish matchups. Charles Barkley spoke long and lovingly of the man's sense of humor, and the constant back-and-forth on whether or not the man actually killed a lion with a spear as a teenager, was always good for killing time at a game.

Manute died this weekend, at the age of 47, from a rare skin condition. Of course he did. Was someone like him ever destined to leave this world in an ordinary manner?