The NBA is not short of contentious situations in its history — it's filled with them. From performance-enhancing drugs, affairs, links to criminal activity, sports betting and everything in between have come across the league at some stage.
Of course, the majority of sticky situations involve the very players that make up the NBA, and some situations are particularly more peculiar than others. With a smorgasbord of situations to choose from, when it comes to the controversial story of Sudanese-born former Center Manute Bol , just about everything was a question mark when he made his way to American soil, including his age.
It's important to acknowledge that this situation isn't uncommon for African-born athletes. Their birthing system is substantially different from the rest of the world, meaning that, oftentimes, children can be born with no issuance of a birth certificate.
The absence of a birth certificate isn't an intentional malicious act but a result of various factors, including poverty, lack of awareness about registration, geographical challenges and bureaucratic hurdles. These issues often impact the ability of parents to register their children and access essential services or, in Bol's case, have verifiable evidence that he was of a certain age before the NBA draft.
We've also seen a more recent example of this circumstance post-2010s, involving former Milwaukee Bucks lottery pick Thon Maker , who was taken with the 10th pick in the 2016 NBA draft. Maker's age was a point of significant controversy before the draft, with many believing he was older than the 19-year-old he claimed and closer to 23. This controversy arose from various sources, including a 2010 yearbook suggesting he was in the graduating class of that year, an expired passport listing a different birthdate, and conflicting information about his educational background.
Thon was touted as an athletic prospect with great pedigree but struggled early on and only lasted three years in Milwaukee. He was then shipped to the Detroit Pistons before a brief stint with the Cleveland Cavaliers before exiting the league. It's never been definitively confirmed publicly if Maker was, in fact, not the age he claimed, but all signs point to this being a realistic possibility.
Before entering the NBA, Bol was recruited by Kevin Mackey to attend Cleveland State University. He was a mouth-watering prospect. Standing at 7'7" alone put him on the radar of NBA scouts, and combined with his natural athletic explosiveness, wingspan, reach, good hands and the potential to protect the rim and patrol the paint, Mackey jumped at the opportunity to have him a part of his program.
Still, Kevin knew of the mysteries surrounding Manute's personal information. But that didn't stop him. Anticipating Bol's stock to rise ahead of an NBA future, Mackey dubiously took it upon himself to give him a birthdate.
"I gave him his birthday because they didn't know how old he was. Bol had no idea of his age, and the kid who came over with him didn't know how old he was. No one knew how old he was," he said .
"I wanted to make sure he was young enough because he didn't have an age. I think he was in his 40s; I really do. But there's no way of ever really knowing. Every athletic door is open at 19; every athletic door is closed when you're 35. He was probably 40, 50 years old when he was playing in the NBA," he added.
Sadly, Bol passed away in 2010 due to acute kidney failure and complications from Stevens-Johnson syndrome — 15 years after he retired from the NBA.
To this day, he remains one of the most intriguing players in league history. Bol's game was certifiable — he led the NBA in blocks on two occasions in 1986 and 1989 and retired as the only player ever with more blocks than points in a career, finishing with 2,086 blocks and 1,599 points.
When considering the mystery around his age, there's a real chance that Bol was competing and producing in the NBA in his mid-40s or early 50s. If so, it makes his career even more impressive than it was and perhaps points to him being an early example of a player holding off Father Time before modern medicine and sports science existed.
Ultimately, we never found out his true age, but former Philadelphia 76ers teammate Jayson Williams has since stated Bol was 55 when he retired from the Association .
Nevertheless, at the time, Mackey believed in him so much that he was willing to put his reputation on the line to give Bol a chance at a professional sporting career.
