6'7", 215 lb basktball player breaks 5 minute mile in practice

highhoppingworm wrote:

I’ll be honest... that weight at 6’7” is not that ridiculous to me nor is this feat THAT impressive. I would wager there are a large number of NBA athletes that could pull this off.

sub 5 minute mile: The greatest ever and arguably one of the most fit; MJ; ran 5:20 when he was 22 years old in 1985. You would be very hard pressed to find 10 guys in the NBA that could run a sub 5 minute mile right now, no specific training.

Alec Kessler was 6'11'' and played for the Miami Heat in the early 90s. I remember it was reported he ran sub 5 minute miles. Quite a guy. Became a surgeon after his playing days ended. Tragically he died of a heart attack at age 40.

runnER/DR wrote:

The most telling part of this tweet:

"fastest time I've ever been a part of"

This is obviously not common. I'm sure some basketball player somewhere has done this, but it's a first in his 25 years in the college basketball world.

I don't really know what that bolded statement means, but it sounds like he's never been to a high school track meet.

Regardless I'm impressed and it makes me wonder how much better track could be if the big sports didn't rob all of our talent.

David Wowie wrote:

[quote]Ghost1 wrote:

I have a hard time believing he’s really 6 foot seven because he was 6 foot four as a senior in high school so it beggars belief that he grew an extra 3 inches between being a senior in high school and in college.

You do?

Never heard of any male growing like this before?

Why SOME might still grow after age 18, it is still pretty unusual.

This is sort of like finding instances where someone's parachute failed or they even jumped without one and lived and saying "See it can happen"!

NotAMathematician wrote:

Alec Kessler was 6'11'' and played for the Miami Heat in the early 90s. I remember it was reported he ran sub 5 minute miles. Quite a guy. Became a surgeon after his playing days ended. Tragically he died of a heart attack at age 40.

Kessler is a UGA grad as am I. Outstanding college player and then to become a doc...wow. Alec left UGA as its all-time leading scorer.

His brother Chad was also very good and played at UGA as well.

If I remember correctly, Spencer Hawes, a Seattle area kid who went to the University of Washington ran a 5:17 mile as a 7 footer. I always thought that was pretty good. He had a 12 year NBA career.

For growing after high school, check of David Robinson.

I used to get my high jump and long jump people from Basketball. Shamelessly let them come out and compete with one another at practice, then suit up for meets with very little coaching. Always had several jumping at 6' 4" to 6'6" and garner lots of points. But only had one or two who would run over 200yds. No milers. Just One guy one time ran a 1:54 half to beat our rival high school's best guy.

This is impressive... but not surprising.

Seems basketball players make good milers (Allen Iverson) and soccer//football players make great 800 meter runners.

Let's remember these guys are playing basketball for several hours a day and aren't really prepping for running a fast mile outside of their basketball routines

Johnny Dawkins ran a 437 mile at Duke and a bunch of guys at UNC ran around 4:40 to 4:50

I'm sure if these guys stopped playing basketball for a few days and just focused on training for a fast mile they could do quite a bit faster

I guess the point I'm making is I don't think they're really focusing a lot of time or attention on this outside of a being one more drill. When you know you have to practice more bball that day or early the next morning it's definitely going to prevent you from going all out

PresidentTrump wrote:

highhoppingworm wrote:

I’ll be honest... that weight at 6’7” is not that ridiculous to me nor is this feat THAT impressive. I would wager there are a large number of NBA athletes that could pull this off.

sub 5 minute mile: The greatest ever and arguably one of the most fit; MJ; ran 5:20 when he was 22 years old in 1985. You would be very hard pressed to find 10 guys in the NBA that could run a sub 5 minute mile right now, no specific training.

Guarantee if the NBA took a whole week off from basketball and went to the track with the sole purpose of trying to run the fastest mile a bunch of guys in the NBA could go sub 4:30

Spud Webb, Muggsy Bogues, John Wall, Allen Iverson, guys like that when they were in their Prime if they were motivated and had a whole weekend to just focus on a fast time could run 4:30

When a lot of these mile times are reported you have to question the motivation and were they just doing it for some basic conditioning

If guys are running a mile as part of a three or four hour basketball practice or as part of a 2 a day for a five or even six hours of Total training obviously the time isn't going to be nearly as fast as if someone is solely focusing their whole days training on a fast mile time such as in a race

I wouldn't be surprised if some of the very fastest guys and best condition guys in the NBA if they had a week to take off from basketball ands were really motivated and it meant a lot to them I think a couple of the top guys could probably run somewhere around a 4:15 to 4:20

There's been guys that posted on this site that claim to run sub 4:10 and play Division 1 basketball so I'm talking about the very fastest guys in best condition I'm not talking about your average but certainly most NBA point guards could run in the 4:30 with a little bit of time and motivation

PresidentTrump wrote:

highhoppingworm wrote:

I’ll be honest... that weight at 6’7” is not that ridiculous to me nor is this feat THAT impressive. I would wager there are a large number of NBA athletes that could pull this off.

sub 5 minute mile: The greatest ever and arguably one of the most fit; MJ; ran 5:20 when he was 22 years old in 1985. You would be very hard pressed to find 10 guys in the NBA that could run a sub 5 minute mile right now, no specific training.

You would be hard-pressed to find 10 guys in the NBA who were guards or even probably forwards who couldn't run at 5 minute mile if they wanted to

Seriously Jordan was jogging 2 a 520

All I can say is I was pretty serious about bball in high school and could run a five minute mile easy and wasn't close to NBA level in either speed or shape

It's weird for some reason guys on this panel really underestimate the cardio shape that bball and soccer players are in

It's all about motivation and having a little time off from having to play basketball.

People way underestimate professional athletes ability to run a fast mile. If middle school kids can Break 5 minutes I think professional basketball players could do the same. As others have said most of the time these guys are just jogging these miles as basic conditioning

Wilt was a track star at University of Kansas. I have no doubt he could have done that.

Is a 5 minute mile supposed to be fast?

My uncle Kurt played in the NBA. He was 7'1" 390 lbs and ran a 4:13 mile in Yeezys in practice.

Also, my hs b'ball team all had to run a mile in under 4:30 or they were off the team. I personally witnessed all of them do it.

Also, I'm a terrible runner with no talent but even I broke 5 for the mile when I was 8 during my first week of practice.

Reggie White said he knew he was ready to play when he could run the warm-up mile in under 4:40.

Also, one time I went to the World Chess Championships and saw most of the top chess players at the local track, all running sub-5 miles despite never having trained. Magnus Carlsen did a 5 x mile workout starting with a 4:29 and ending with 4:02. It was the first run of his life.