Jorge "Giant" Gonzalez as an NBA starter.

So, while being 7 foot 7 made Jorge Gonzalez a basketball player and was even drafted by the Atlanta Hawks, in OTL he was better known in the US as a professional wrestler.

Was there any chance of him becoming successful at the NBA level, even as a Manute Bol / Shawn Bradley niche blocker? Every source I've seen on him, whether for basketball or wrestling, has said that he was ultimately just too clunky, for lack of a better word. Could that be fixed, and if so, how would it affect the Hawks/other teams he'd play for?

these are the only basketball stats I could find for him, in an Argentine league
 

Deleted member 14881

So, while being 7 foot 7 made Jorge Gonzalez a basketball player and was even drafted by the Atlanta Hawks, in OTL he was better known in the US as a professional wrestler.

Was there any chance of him becoming successful at the NBA level, even as a Manute Bol / Shawn Bradley niche blocker? Every source I've seen on him, whether for basketball or wrestling, has said that he was ultimately just too clunky, for lack of a better word. Could that be fixed, and if so, how would it affect the Hawks/other teams he'd play for?

these are the only basketball stats I could find for him, in an Argentine league

Maybe get rid of his knee injury and he gets like a 2-3 year career of sorts.
 
Maybe get rid of his knee injury and he gets like a 2-3 year career of sorts.

If that happens, I can see him becoming a meme/weird footnote later on. Bol/Bradley's size and (almost certainly) Yinka "Four seasons, four assists" Dare's "ability" pushed into one person.
 
I mean, the likely nail would need to be having him join a team other than the Hawks, otherwise Ted Turner will likely move him to WCW.
 
I have never seen him play basketball, but I have seen him wrestle and he ran like a collapsing apartment building. Also, early '90s NBA was not very foreign friendly, outside of a few freak cases where a need was filled and a coach actually bothered to try to integrate the foreign talent. He also had no mean streak, from what I have heard. So basically you have an awkward giant with no understanding of US schemes and offenses, who is "soft" and has poor language skills. Yeah, no. Now, if he could punch a dude under the basket and knew how to throw an elbow here and then, then someone would have picked him up just because you needed a bruiser, especially if you were in the East and facing those Pat Riley Knicks teams.
 
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