Gheorghe Muresan stands alone at 7'7" — and of the 310 seven-footers ever, the register lists one famous name an inch shorter than you remember. Every 7'4"+ listing in history, measured from real rosters.
Read the full story ↓Across 5,152 players in the league’s all-time roster register, exactly one is listed at 7'7". Below him, the tallest NBA players of all time — every player in NBA history listed 7'4" or taller:
| Height | Player | Seasons in the record |
|---|---|---|
| 7'7" | Gheorghe Muresan | 1993–1999 |
| 7'6" | Manute Bol | 1985–1994 |
| 7'6" | Shawn Bradley | 1993–2004 |
| 7'6" | Yao Ming | 2002–2010 |
| 7'5" | Chuck Nevitt | 1982–1993 |
| 7'5" | Slavko Vranes | 2003–2003 |
| 7'5" | Pavel Podkolzin | 2004–2005 |
| 7'5" | Sim Bhullar | 2014–2014 |
| 7'5" | Tacko Fall | 2019–2021 |
| 7'4" | Mark Eaton | 1982–1992 |
| 7'4" | Ralph Sampson | 1983–1991 |
| 7'4" | Rik Smits | 1988–1999 |
| 7'4" | Priest Lauderdale | 1996–1997 |
| 7'4" | Boban Marjanovic | 2015–2023 |
| 7'4" | Victor Wembanyama | 2023–2026 |
The famous absence at the very top is deliberate: the register this page prints carries Manute Bol at 7'6", one inch under the figure most lists repeat. Rather than quietly promoting him with a second source, the page keeps one record for every player — the same rule every measurement on this site follows.
310 seven-footers have entered the league — but not evenly. The seven-footer boom peaked with the 2000s entry classes at 10.9% of all entrants, and the positionless era has been thinning the giants ever since — down to 5.7% of the 2020s classes:
| Entry decade | Seven-footers | All entrants | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1950s | 2 | 281 | 0.7% |
| 1960s | 9 | 315 | 2.9% |
| 1970s | 16 | 572 | 2.8% |
| 1980s | 51 | 662 | 7.7% |
| 1990s | 60 | 669 | 9.0% |
| 2000s | 75 | 690 | 10.9% |
| 2010s | 58 | 894 | 6.5% |
| 2020s | 35 | 618 | 5.7% |
One league roster register, 5,152 usable players, each counted once at his listed height; 52 unparsable listings are excluded rather than guessed at. Listed height is the league’s figure, not a measurement of our own — which is exactly why the table can be complete. The other end of the ruler is its own page: the shortest NBA players ever — and the middle lives at average NBA height.
More from the record book: how long a pro career lasts, the average NFL retirement age, how big the average NFL player is, average NBA height, the shortest NBA players ever, average WNBA height, how many players are in the NFL, how many players are in the NBA, the average MLB player, the perfect MLB season and every perfect season.
Gheorghe Muresan, listed at 7'7" across his 1993–1999 career — the only player in the league's register at that height, and so the tallest player in NBA history by the record the league itself keeps. One step down at 7'6" sit Manute Bol, Shawn Bradley, and Yao Ming.
The league's own roster register carries Bol at 7'6", one inch under the 7'7" many outside lists use. This page prints one record consistently rather than mixing sources per player — so Bol stands a rung below Gheorghe Muresan here, and the register is named so you know exactly what is being measured.
The tallest listing of the current era is Victor Wembanyama at 7'4", entered 2023 — the same listed height the register carries for Mark Eaton, Ralph Sampson, and Boban Marjanovic before him.
310 players have ever been listed at seven feet or taller — but only 29 ever reached 7'3", and just 4 reached 7'6". The seven-footer peaked with the 2000s entry classes and has been fading since.
6'6.3" in the current era — nearly a foot below the men on this page. The full position-by-position and decade-by-decade breakdown lives on the average NBA height page, from the same roster record.
Every player on this page is in the game’s record book: spin a franchise era on the basketball board and the seven-footers you land are the same listings measured here — the all-time starting five has room for exactly one of them at center.
