Weighting around 170 kg, the centre played for multiple clubs and faced Michael Jordan’s Bulls in the Suns’ finals.
Former NBA player Oliver Miller passed away on Wednesday as a result of cancer, according to the NBA Players Association. The center, who was 54 years old, played nine seasons in the league with the Suns, Pistons, Raptors, Mavericks, Kings and Timberwolves.
Miller, known as ‘Big O’, was considered the heaviest player ever to play in the NBA. After starring at the University of Arkansas, he began his professional career weighing 127 kilos, but over the years his weight increased to over 170. Shaquille O’Neal said in an interview that he came to one preseason weighing more than 180.
The center was 2.06 meters tall and his extraordinary corpulence did not prevent him from moving easily around the court. His good reading of the game also earned him a career of 493 games in the NBA with averages of 7.4 points, 5.9 rebounds, 2.2 assists and 1.5 blocks.
A final defeat to the Bulls of Jordan In 1992, the year Shaq was drafted first overall, Miller was selected by the Suns with the 22nd pick. The centre would make it to the NBA Finals with the Phoenix team that season, but he would lose to Michael Jordan’s Bulls in the ring contest. He was a member of the Raptors’ original squad, which entered the league for the first time in 1995. Social media posts from the University of Arkansas and the Canadian franchise expressed their sorrow over his demise.
