For those of you who might describe yourself as “tall,” meet Olivier Rioux, the high school senior who just signed to play for the University of Florida in the fall. Rioux is absurdly tall – 7ft 9in (for now) to be precise. Whether he’s playing alongside his high school teammates or surrounded by them in the huddle, the 300lbs beanstalk looks for all the world like one of those adults who pretends to be a teenage player just for the thrill of getting beat up of children. The only thing about Rioux that isn’t long are its stories.
Rioux has been growing fast for some time now: 1.57 m in kindergarten, Six feet tall by the time he was eight. By the time he was 4-and-a-half feet tall, he would have made the 6-foot-10 LeBron James look undersized. It was around then that the highs of him dominating his tragically ill-equipped league began making the social media rounds, an optical illusion that rivals the dress meme. (Are the other kids 6 feet or 6 years old?) Four years ago, Guinness World Records declared the then 14-year-old Rioux the world’s tallest teenager at 7 feet 11 inches. That would have taken Rioux up a notch than the 7-foot-2 NBA rookie of the year, Victor Wembanyama. He even stands head and shoulders above legendary NBA leviathans such as Gheorghe Mureșan (2 meters 70), Yao Ming (2 meters 6 meters) and Sim Bhullar (2 meters 5 meters). “People see his size,” said Canadian national team assistant coach Michael Meeks said van Rioux, “and their expectations are quite high.”
Rioux isn’t the only skyscraper in his family. His father, a photographer, could have a shot at the standout at his craft at 6ft 8in. His mother, a former volleyball player, is 6ft 1in. His older brother, a former hooper, is 6ft 9in. Among other indignities, Rioux has had to watch people point and yell at him for attention wherever he goes. “Of course I’m tall and all that,” Rioux told the Naples Daily News. “But that’s no reason to yell. I mean, it’s kind of funny, but it’s frustrating when they do that.”
Rioux, a native of the Montreal suburbs, grew up speaking only French—which he might have gotten away with if he’d taken up hockey like most kids his age. But he outgrew the sport before anyone could begin to imagine the damage it could do to a kid who, at 10, was already four inches taller than the NHL’s tallest player. now.
The language barrier only became an issue in 2021, when Rioux was sent to the famed IMG sports academy in Florida to fine-tune his basketball skills – which, one imagines, he’ll need as he encounters more talented players closer to his size lie. But that doesn’t mean that savoir faire because dunking without leaving his feet won’t do you any good.
Private tutoring has done wonders for Rioux’s ability to navigate his academics and understand basketball coaching. (“It was fun,” Rioux said from his freshman year in Florida. “My grades have improved.”) Still, one wonders if it’s the American basketball firmament that should brush up on its French, given the recent string of francophones in the NBA draft. “We have a lot of young kids who believe,” French giant Rudy Gobert told ESPN’s Marc Spears after seeing three of his compatriots picked in the top six of this year’s draft. “It started with the older generation paving the way for us and now we’re paving the way for the younger guys.”
France appears to be at the same basketball tipping point as Canada was five years ago, when a record six Canadians came off the draft board within days of the Toronto Raptors winning the country’s first NBA championship. Steve Nash is no longer the standard bearer on the field for the Great North. Today, Canadian basketball players come in all shapes and sizes: the superstar (Shai Gilgeous-Alexander), the stopgap (RJ Barrett), the street fighter (Dillon Brooks). But even as Rioux threatens to break the mold as Canada’s tallest player yet, you can’t help but feel he might be 20 years too late.
Basketball used to be a game where big men like Bill Russell, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Shaquille O’Neal ruled the roost and asserted their dominance in the paint. But as the rules changed to allow for freer play and statistical analysis pigeonholed teams to prioritize dunks and three-pointers, being super tall isn’t enough anymore: 7-foot-1 players often lose their height advantage and play on the perimeter, as Karl-Anthony Towns has done with mixed success for Minnesota. Another example is Wembanyama, who learned to play all five positions while quickly evolving into a center, and typifies the approach to this positionless style of play outside the U.S.
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We can already see the implications for the draft. In the 1980s, the 7ft 4in Zach Edey would have been the first off the board. But on Wednesday, the Canadian fell to ninth – behind a slew of Towns-like towers – despite claiming one of the finest low-post arsenals in the college game.
It’s still a stretch to say Rioux will even come close to making the NBA: He’ll have to prove he can actually play first. Most of the statistics available on him come from his play for the Canadian Under-18 team, and the numbers (he averages less than 10 points and 10 rebounds per game) don’t exactly bode well for a behemoth. And it’s incredibly difficult to maintain a basic level of coordination at Rioux’s height, much less as he grows much taller. It’s Wembanyama’s ability to play with the skill and balance of a smaller man that makes him such a wonder on the court. Rioux is now six inches taller than Wemby and is still growing in every way. And that’s with Rioux already working with a body type more susceptible to injuries.
That’s why Rioux will begin his Florida Gators career as a favored walk-on, meaning he’ll have to win a rotation spot on the team to earn a scholarship. But in Florida, a sunken basketball powerhouse that’s nonetheless turning out a decent number of pros, Rioux has a chance to make a national splash. If viewers are still pointing and screaming in his wake, it’s because of the heights Rioux could still reach.