Starzz’s 7-Foot-2 Newcomer Shines Bright in Early Going
In Salt Lake City, there’s a 24-year-old woman playing professional basketball who’s taller than Wilt Chamberlain and Shaquille O’Neal and is nearly a half-foot taller than Karl Malone of the hometown NBA Jazz.
The Sparks’ Lisa Leslie comes up to her throat.
And here’s the kicker--Margo Dydek, at 7 feet 2, can also play, as she will tonight at the Great Western Forum, when her team, the Utah Starzz, plays the Sparks.
When Utah and Los Angeles met in the WNBA opener three weeks ago, Dydek blocked Leslie’s first shot, then went on to tie Leslie’s league record for blocks in a game, six.
Dydek, who is from Warsaw, Poland, currently leads the league with 26 blocks, followed by Leslie with 20. Dydek, coming off a 27-point, 16-rebound performance against Houston, is 13th in the league in scoring at 14 points a game and seventh in rebounding at 7.1.
She’s perfectly proportioned, athletic, supple, graceful, has a soft shot down low and can even shoot from three-point range. And, of course, she dunks.
There’s no mystery as to Dydek’s height. One of her grandfathers was 7 feet, the other 6-6, she says.
Her father is 6-8, her mother 6-1. She has a 6-7 older sister, Kashka, who played in the ABL’s first season, and a 16-year-old sister, Martha, who is 6-3 but aspires to be two meters, which is 6-5 1/2.
The Starzz’s Russian star, Elena Baranova, who had played against her in Europe, strongly urged Utah Coach Denise Taylor to draft Dydek, even before the April combine in Chicago.
“Elena told us she was 6-10,” Taylor said.
“But when I walked in the gym that day in Chicago and saw her, my jaw dropped. I thought: ‘6-10? No way.’ ”
Dydek, who speaks four languages (“I just pick them up from friends and teammates”), including passable English, has a remarkably sunny view of life.
When asked if she’d rather be 5-2 than 7-2, she shook her head.
“No, it’s me, I’m tall--that’s the way it is,” said Dydek, who has played professionally in Poland, France and Spain.
“I just try to be myself. Everyone in my family is tall. We’re used to being stared at.”
Dydek talked about her teenage years. She was 6 feet tall as a 12-year-old, 6-6 at 14.
“When I would go back to school, I could see all my friends had grown over the summer,” she said.
“But they only did that once. Me, I kept growing.”
Not growing is Dydek’s social life. “There’s just no time,” she said. “I’m playing basketball all the time, traveling. And when the WNBA season is over, I’ll probably go back to Europe for a season over there.”
One possible advantage to being 7-2: free clothes.
Dydek’s agent is Los Angeles-based Trisonya Abraham.
“I’m talking to several clothiers who specialize in big and tall women,” she said.
“I love walking around with Margo. I’m 6-3 in heels and she makes me feel like a petite.”
To WNBA fans, she’s the 7-2 player for the Starzz.
To Poles, she’s a countrywoman doing her nation proud.
In the L.A.-Utah season opener, high in the Delta Center seats, a family held up this banner:
“Ich! Ich!
Polska Dziewczyna!”
Translation: “Go! Go!
Polish Girl!”