I stood next to Bob Lanier at a wedding once....talk about a big guy....
When I worked at the Carrier Dome I saw Rony Seikaly(6’10”) a lot. I stood next to or near him several times. His waist came up to my shoulders.
He was very tall, but there was something about Patrick Ewing that was different. He was just huge. He was very muscular. I think he could have played football too, if he could have run fast.
Seikaly came to SU when I was a Junior. He came in as a sophomore. He had played some college ball in Greece. The SU coaches turned him into a professional basketball player.
He worked at it too. Practiced free throws for hours every day. Spent time in the weight room, building muscle. When he started, he used to foul out of every game. Maybe score 4 points and 20 rebounds. By the time he was a senior, he was scoring 20 points and 20+ rebounds. He had also put on a lot of muscle, so that bigger guys like Ewing could not push him around in the paint. When he was a Senior, SU lost to Indiana(damn you Bobby Knight)in the NCAA Championship game.
My point is Rony worked his butt off to become a PRO. On the other hand was Derrik Coleman. The guy was an incredible talent. God given natural talent. However, we was lazy. He never worked at it. He was drafted as the #1 spot to the NBA by the NJ Nets. Now, he is bankrupt. I just pulled this off the internet:
Coleman played in the NBA until 2005, ending his career with the Detroit Pistons. He was Rookie of the Year in 1991 and an all-star in ‘94, and when his NBA days ended, he ran into financial problems, declaring bankruptcy while living in Franklin Lakes, N.J., in 2010.