At 7-Foot-9 North Korean A Very Tall Order

The green van rolling past the cornfields in this quiet Canadian town has tinted windows but makes no secret of its contents: “Official Transportation For 7‘10” Michael Ri,” announces the lettering on the door panels.

Not until the van stops at the Thunderbird Athletic Club, however, can one truly appreciate what it holds, as Ri unfolds himself from the back and stretches to his full height.

Inside the club, some patrons do a double take, but others have grown used to seeing Ri, who steps onto a Stairmaster designed for someone two feet shorter.

For more than two months Ri, 27, has been training here under the direction of former Canadian national basketball team coach Jack Donohue in an effort that, both hope, will complete Ri’s journey from his native North Korea to the National Basketball Association.

Ri, officially 7 feet 9, has the size and, Donohue claims, the rapidly improving skills to play in the NBA. Soon to be recognized by the “Guiness Book of World Records” as the world’s tallest human, Ri could become the first Asian and tallest player ever in the NBA.

So far, however, no NBA team has officially expressed interest in Ri, primarily because the U.S. State and Treasury departments ruled in May that signing Ri would violate the country’s trading-with-the-enemy law, which prohibits U.S. companies from engaging in business with North Korea.

Still, the people at the sports management company that is financing Ri’s training say they think they can untangle the red tape and get him into the pros.

“Not only do we have to deal with the NBA, but we also have to deal with international politics,” said Wayne MacKinnon, chairman of the board of the Ottawa-based Evergreen Sports Management, which is lobbying the U.S. government on Ri’s behalf. “I’m very optimistic. We have to play this very, very carefully, but I think it’s working. If things go well, I think he’d be there by the time NBA camps open in early October.”

But the NBA has sent a memo to its teams instructing them not to have any contact with Ri or his representatives. And Jeffrey Mishkin, the NBA’s executive vice president and chief legal officer, said the league will not push the State or Treasury departments to admit Ri.

“We have comprehensive embargo sanctions against North Korea that prohibit … employment of nationals by the U.S.,” said a Treasury Department official familiar with Ri’s case.

So for now, Ri remains cloistered in this town 20 miles west of Ottawa, with an amiable Canadian coach, a bubbly 16-year-old South Korean interpreter, two grim-faced North Korean handlers and the hope that if he can enter the United States and the NBA he will realize a personal goal, earn millions of dollars and, perhaps, do his small part to improve international relations.

Before Ri can change the world, he must change his jump shot.

After he finished his Stairmaster workout, Donohue and assistant coach Michael Hickey ran him through his daily basketball exercises at nearby Algonquin College.

“Follow through, Michael! Follow through on your shot!” Donohue barked as Ri practiced typical big-man exercises: the Mikan drill (shooting the ball quickly from alternate sides of the basket) and the sky hook.

As Ri continued his workout, two men in slacks and short-sleeve dress shirts dribbled awkwardly and attempted two-handed set shots at a nearby basket. John Kim and Carl Lee - a pair of 5-3 North Korean officials who refer to themselves as “the delegation” - have been sent to oversee Ri’s stay. They never let Ri out of their sight, following him to the masseur, dentist, grocery store, health club and anywhere else he goes.

Kim and Lee strictly limit Ri’s access to the Kanata and Ottawa communities, particularly their South Korean population, about 150 families.

After Ri’s basketball workout at Algonquin College was over, Kim and Lee agreed to allow him to be interviewed by a reporter for the first time. Then they promptly sat down with Ri on one side of an outdoor picnic table in the college’s quadrangle. Sixteen-year-old Arum Hong, a South Korean emigrant, translated Ri’s words.

Ri spoke about growing up in Pyongyang, where he has a younger brother and younger sister, a father who is an electrian and a mother who is a homemaker. He said he learned about the NBA when he saw videotapes two years ago.

He said that he felt some culture shock when he arrived in Canada, but that he “tries not to think about anything other than basketball now at this stage where I am training to get into the NBA. Of course, I do miss North Korea, but doesn’t everyone?”

But when Ri was asked how he felt about the U.S. government’s blocking his entrance to the NBA, Kim interrupted and said he, not Ri, would answer that question because he is the “head of delegation.”

“Sports should be pure, and it should be just pure athletes who come in to play without any other interference,” Kim said. “And that is why sports is played all over the world. So right now the way the North Korean government is thinking, is they’re lending the land, the country to play so that they can compete with other players.”

One year ago, Ri was unknown to the international basketball community - and to the “Guiness Book,” which listed an American woman and Pakistani man as sharing the height record at 7-7-1/2. (Doctors say Ri, whose feet are size 21, has no pituitary gland disease such as the one that forced 7-7 Washington Wizards center Gheorghe Muresan, currently the NBA’s tallest player, to undergo radiation treatment.)

Last August, Pyongyang sent a team to an Asian basketball tournament, held in Taiwan, for the first time in 18 years. Ri scored 27 points in a losing effort against a U.S. team of elite college players.

That performance got the attention of a sports management group in Cleveland, which sent an application to the Treasury Department in an effort to represent Ri in the NBA draft last June, but Treasury vetoed it.

Then MacKinnon, a lawyer, heard about Ri. He persuaded investors to finance Ri’s training - estimated at more than $1,000 per day - and negotiated with the Canadian and North Korean governments to get Ri to Kanata.

Upon his arrival, Ri Myong-Hun took the name Michael, after his idol, Chicago Bulls star Michael Jordan. Ri came with better basketball skills than his hosts had expected - but also with more body fat (18 percent), less vertical leaping ability (12 inches) and less strength (he could life a mere 95 pounds from a squat).

“He was awful,” said Loren Goldenberg, trainer for the Ottawa Senators of the National Hockey League.