IMG Academy in Florida is attempting to develop seven foot basketball players similar to what they have done in tennis.

Two of their basketball big men are Meng Xiang Yu from China and Satnam Singh from India. Meng is 7-foot-2 and Singh is 7-foot-0, while both are 17 years old.

"What do you do with these big kids at these sizes at these young ages?" asks Nate Vander Sluis, IMG's national varsity team coach. "How do you develop them from a basketball standpoint and from a physical standpoint? Developing a 7-2 Chinese kid is not the same as trying to develop a 6-foot, 16-year-old kid. Those two muscle groups are two different things given how much growth they have already had."

Because both the AAU system and International professional leagues demand a lot of games, many big men are chronically hurt before they hit 20 or soon thereafter.

"I think it's learning from mistakes," says Dan Barto, the head skills trainer at IMG. "Think about a triathlon runner or a marathon runner. You don't go out and run 26 miles, you run 10 one day and 18 another. It's the same thing here. We are taking our time."