Sun Ming Ming (right), the new Maryland Nighthawks center, is introduced to the media on Wednesday as his translator watches. At 2.40 meters, Sun is the world's tallest professional basketball player. (Source: Shanghai Daily) Photo Gallery>>>

BEIJING, Feb. 2 -- The Maryland Nighthawks unveiled their biggest ever signing on Wednesday, introducing the world's tallest professional basketball player -- 2.40-meter Sun Ming Ming of China.

Passed over in the 2005 NBA draft because of a lack of strength and fitness, Sun has knocked around Hollywood -- where he recently finished filming Rush Hour III with Jackie Chan -- and basketball's minor  leagues the last two years before joining the American Basketball Association (ABA) Nighthawks.

The towering center -- with size 19 feet -- now hopes to follow in the footsteps of his famous countryman and Houston Rockets All-Star, Yao Ming, to NBA stardom.

"I want to play in the NBA," Sun, who will wear No. 79, told reporters on Wednesday.

Sun's dreams of an NBA career gained new momentum after the doctors removed a tumor secreting excess growth hormone.

Nighthawks' owner Tom Doyle is convinced his newest player will soon be leaving for the NBA. The 22-year-old has already had a brief try-out with the Los Angeles Lakers.

If Sun succeeds in playing in the NBA, he would become the tallest player in league history, overtaking Manute Bol and Gheorghe Muresan.

Sun hasn't played organized basketball in more than six months, since a brief stint with the Dodge City Legend of the United States Basketball League, another minor American league.

"We will monitor his progress. His name has cropped up, but since he's never really played, I don't know how he can be on our radar," Marty Blake, the NBA's director of scouting, told the Associated Press.

"We would be interested in a player of some repute anywhere in the world, especially one who's 7-9. ... As (former Utah Jazz coach) Frank Layden always said, 'You can't teach height."'

Sun moved from China, where he played on a second-division team, to California about 1 1/2 years ago in hopes of making it in the American pro leagues. His career was delayed last year while he had two operations for a pituitary tumor that led to his extraordinary size but threatened his life.

Sun said those procedures were successful and he's getting into shape.

Nighthawks coach William Rankin expects Sun to be able to play about 28-30 minutes a game -- his debut comes Saturday. That will also be Rankin's debut with the Nighthawks -- he was hired about a week ago from  a small college team.

Sun has been working out daily for one and half weeks with Nighthawks guard Randy Gill, who said of his new center: "Every day, somebody's going to get dunked on."

Doyle is big on marketing, and he's hoping to organize an exhibition game with nearly-as-tall-as-Sun former NBA players Muresan and Bol to raise money toward Sun's more than 100,000 U.S. dollars in medical bills.

Did the Nighthawks want Sun more for his ability to play basketball or to draw crowds (the team averages about 600 spectators in its 1,000-capacity Montgomery College gym in Rockville)?

"There's no question that having Ming here sells tickets," Doyle said. "But there also is no question that having him here is a huge presence in our middle."

(Source: Shanghai Daily/Agencies)

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