The Tallest Female Basketball Player: Malgorzata Dydek. Born Malgorzata Dydek in Warsaw, Poland, in 1974, there was no doubt she would grow up to be tall. Her dad was 6 -7, and her mom was 6-3 herself.

While her sisters grew up to be 6-6 and 6 -7, Margo ended up towering over them, growing to be over 7-2 and became the tallest basketball player in the WNBA.

As the story goes, though, she didn’t initially care for basketball. Her older sister Katarzyna pulled her along to play, and over time, little sister changed her mind.

“Now, I can’t live without basketball,” she said during a pre-draft interview in 1998.

The Utah Starzz finished the league’s inaugural season 7-21 and at the bottom of the standings and so had the first pick the following April. Their roster was built around forward Wendy Palmer and center Elena Baranova out of Russia, both double-digit scorers, but the team was bottom of the league in offensive rating and one spot out of last in defensive rating.

Fun thing was that at the pre-draft interviews, Margo was around 6-6 tall but only a couple of months later at draft night she was over 7-feet tall.

There was no special excitement surrounding the “6-foot-6” Dydek entering the pre-draft workouts, but when she walked in and everyone realized her listed height was a clerical error, everything changed.

Like Baranova, Dydek had experience playing overseas before coming over to play in the WNBA. She played from 1992 to 1994 in Poland, followed by a pair of years each in France and Spain. In fact, she was familiar with Baranova from her time in Europe and expressed interest in the interior presence they could create together.

Consider that the year before the tallest player in the WNBA was Haixia Zheng, a 6-8 Los Angeles Sparks center, Dydek was way taller than her.

The Utah Starzz didn’t hesitate much with their selection.

In her rookie season, she averaged 12.9 points, 7.6 rebounds, and 3.8 blocks.

The Starzz improved from 8-22 in 1998 to 15-17 in 1999, and Dydek also experienced success overseas. She helped lead Poland to a gold medal in the EuroBasket Women Championship that year, averaging 19.3 points per game en route to being named tournament MVP.

Dydek suffered a sprained ankle partway through the 2000 season, and she wasn’t able to make the same impact, though still solid with 9.2 points, 5.5 rebounds, and 3.0 blocks per game.

In 2001 the Starzz finally made their first playoff appearance led by Dydek who averaged 10.9 points, 7.6 rebounds, and 3.5 blocks per game.

In a game against Orlando that season, she had a performance that still stands out today. With 12 points, 11 rebounds, and 10 blocks, she recorded the league’s second triple-double and set a new record for blocks in a game.

Before the 2003 season, the Starzz relocated to San Antonio, where they became the Silver Stars, and Dydek earned her first All-Star nod as a reserve.

In 2004 The Connecticut Sun, who had similarly relocated from Orlando prior to 2003, was looking for a true center and was able to strike a deal with San Antonio, sending Katie Feenstra and a 2006 first-round pick to get Dydek.

That year, she became the first player to record 700 career blocks in her 243rd game. In 21.6 minutes per game, she averaged 7.3 points, 6.3 rebounds, and 2.3 blocks per game. The Sunswept Detroit and Indiana to get back to the WNBA Finals, but once again they fell just short, this time to the Monarchs.

Everything seemed aligned in 2006, with the Sun getting five players to the All-Star game, including Margo’s first nod as a starter in the Eastern Conference.

Dydek upped her production in essentially the same time on the court, recording 9.4 points, 6.1 rebounds, and 2.5 blocks in 21.9 minutes per game as the Sun secured the top seed overall.

Unfortunately, they were upset by the Detroit Shock in the Eastern Conference Finals, and an early exit in the 2007 Playoffs spelled the end of the Sun era and the height of Dydek’s career.

While playing in Spain prior to the summer of 2007, Margo started to experience back issues.

That October, she announced she was expecting her first child, and many assumed that Dydek would retire from the WNBA, as she questioned her desire to return back.

After giving birth in April of 2008, she signed with the Los Angeles Sparks in an effort to fill a spot left by Christi Thomas’ injury. After playing just seven minutes over two games, she officially retired from the WNBA and ended her historic run in the league.

Over her 11 seasons, she amassed 3,220 points, 2,143 rebounds, and 877 blocks in 323 games played.

In May 2011, while pregnant with her third child, Dydek suffered a heart attack and was placed in a medically-induced coma. The following week, she tragically passed away, rocking the basketball world.

Dydek was a daughter, sister, wife, mother, friend, and a unique, game-changing presence in the WNBA.

In 2012, she was included in the Sun’s All-Decade Team, and her number is honored along with Sales and Douglas in the Sun’s Banner of Honor for her impact on the franchise in even her short time in Connecticut.