Bryant Reeves (born June 8, 1973) is an American former professional

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular court, compete with the primary objective of shooting a basketball (approximately in diameter) through the defender's h ...

player. Reeves spent his entire career with the

National Basketball Association The National Basketball Association (NBA) is a professional basketball sports league, league in North America. The league is composed of 30 teams (29 in the United States and 1 in Canada) and is one of the major professional sports leagues i ...

Vancouver Grizzlies The Vancouver Grizzlies were a Canadian professional basketball team based in Vancouver. They were part of the Midwest Division of the Western Conference of the National Basketball Association (NBA). The team was established in 1995, along w ...

, playing with the team from 1995 until 2001. He was nicknamed "Big Country" by his college teammate Byron Houston after Reeves was amazed following his first airplane flight across the United States, having grown up in the small community of Gans, Oklahoma.

College career

Standing tall and weighing between , Reeves was an imposing physical presence on the court and was primed to become a dominant center in the NBA. He had a strong collegiate career with

Oklahoma State University Oklahoma (; Choctaw: ; chr, ᎣᎧᎳᎰᎹ, ''Okalahoma'' ) is a state in the South Central region of the United States, bordered by Texas on the south and west, Kansas on the north, Missouri on the northeast, Arkansas on the east, New ...

, where he averaged 21.5 points per game as a senior and led OSU to the 1995 Final Four.

Professional career

Vancouver Grizzlies (1995–2001)

Reeves became the Grizzlies' first-ever draft choice, selected sixth overall in the

1995 NBA draft The 1995 NBA draft took place on June 28, 1995, at SkyDome in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It marked the first NBA draft to be held outside the United States and was the first draft for the two Canadian expansion teams, Toronto Raptors and Vanco ...

. Reeves played six seasons with the Grizzlies. After averaging 13.3 points per game in a solid rookie season, he averaged 16.2 points per game in 1996–97 season and was subsequently awarded with a six-year, $61.8 million contract extension. The next season was his best, when he averaged 16.3 points, 7.9 rebounds, and 1.08 blocked shots per game. During that season he scored a career-high 41 points against the

Boston Celtics The Boston Celtics ( ) are an American professional basketball team based in Boston. The Celtics compete in the National Basketball Association (NBA) as a member of the league's Eastern Conference Atlantic Division. Founded in 1946 as one of ...

. After 1998, weight-control problems and injuries began to take a toll on Reeves, and his numbers fell off dramatically. He was still the starting center for the Grizzlies, but his minutes per game dropped, and his

field goal A field goal (FG) is a means of scoring in gridiron football. To score a field goal, the team in possession of the ball must place kick, or drop kick, the ball through the goal, i.e., between the uprights and over the crossbar. The entire ba ...

percentage dropped significantly. Eventually, after the Grizzlies moved to

Memphis, Tennessee Memphis is a city in the U.S. state of Tennessee. It is the County seat, seat of Shelby County, Tennessee, Shelby County in the southwest part of the state; it is situated along the Mississippi River. With a population of 633,104 at the 2020 Uni ...

2001 The September 11 attacks against the United States by Al-Qaeda, which killed 2,977 people and instigated the global war on terror, were a defining event of 2001. The United States led a multi-national coalition in an invasion of Afghanistan ...

, Reeves started the season on the injured list due to chronic back pain and was never able to play another game (the only games he played with the team in Memphis were two preseason games). During the preseason play in the fall of 2001, Reeves had experienced back pain and had to be taken off the court on two connected stretchers carried by eight of his teammates. He retired from the league midway through the 2001–02 season.

NBA career statistics

Regular season

, - , align="left" , 1995–96 , align="left" ,

Vancouver Vancouver ( ) is a major city in western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the city, up from 631,486 in 2016. Th ...

, 77 , , 63 , , 24.9 , , .457 , , .000 , , .732 , , 7.4 , , 1.4 , , 0.6 , , 0.7 , , 13.3 , - , align="left" , 1996–97 , align="left" ,

, 75 , , 75 , , 37.0 , , .486 , , .091 , , .704 , , 8.1 , , 2.1 , , 0.4 , , 0.9 , , 16.2 , - , align="left" , 1997–98 , align="left" ,

, 74 , , 74 , , 34.1 , , .523 , , .000 , , .706 , , 7.9 , , 2.1 , , 0.5 , , 1.1 , , 16.3 , - , align="left" , 1998–99 , align="left" ,

, 25 , , 14 , , 28.1 , , .406 , , .000 , , .578 , , 5.5 , , 1.5 , , 0.5 , , 0.3 , , 10.8 , - , align="left" , 1999–00 , align="left" ,

, 69 , , 67 , , 25.7 , , .448 , , .000 , , .648 , , 5.7 , , 1.2 , , 0.5 , , 0.6 , , 8.9 , - , align="left" , 2000–01 , align="left" ,

, 75 , , 48 , , 24.4 , , .460 , , .250 , , .796 , , 6.0 , , 1.1 , , 0.6 , , 0.7 , , 8.3 , - class="sortbottom" , style="text-align:center;" colspan="2", Career , 395 , , 341 , , 30.6 , , .475 , , .074 , , .703 , , 6.9 , , 1.6 , , 0.5 , , 0.8 , , 12.5 , -

Personal life

Bryant was the subject of Kathleen Jayme's documentary film ''

Finding Big Country ''Finding Big Country'' is a Canadian documentary film, directed by Kathleen Jayme and released in 2018. The film documents her attempts to trace the whereabouts of former Vancouver Grizzlies player Bryant "Big Country" Reeves several years after ...

'' in 2018.Dana Gee
"Finding Big Country documentary answers the whatever happened to question"
''

Vancouver Sun The ''Vancouver Sun'', also known as the ''Sun'', is a daily broadsheet newspaper based in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The newspaper is currently published by the Pacific Newspaper Group, a division of Postmedia Network. Published s ...

'', December 4, 2018. Following his career, Reeves went back to Oklahoma and is now a cattle farmer and a family man.

References

External links

Historical Player Profile
at NBA.com *
TheDraftReview.com: Bryant Reeves's NBA Draft History Page
{{DEFAULTSORT:Reeves, Bryant 1973 births Living people All-American college men's basketball players American expatriate basketball people in Canada American men's basketball players Basketball players from Arkansas Basketball players from Oklahoma Centers (basketball) Oklahoma State Cowboys basketball players People from Sequoyah County, Oklahoma Sportspeople from Fort Smith, Arkansas Vancouver Grizzlies draft picks Vancouver Grizzlies players