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7-foot-2 U-16 basketball star Connor Vanover is looked up to on and off the court

 
COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — The looks don’t bother Connor Vanover. He’s used to the slack-jawed stares at this point.
 
Sometimes they come when he’s alone. It’s not often you see a 7-foot-2 teenager walking into a restaurant, grocery store or wherever he might be. But the gawkers really come out when his twin 7-foot brothers, Brandon and Justin, are with him. That threesome makes quite a sight and some even ask for pictures.
 
It’s a good thing Vanover doesn’t mind this sort of attention from complete strangers. He is likely to have a lot more of it in his future.
 
Vanover has spent a week away from his family and Little Rock, Ark., home as he earned a spot on the U-16 national team in basketball at the U.S. Olympic Training Center. He and his new teammates will depart for Bahia Blanca, Argentina on Saturday and begin play next week in the FIBA Americas U-16 Championship.
 
“He’s a guy who likes his height,” coach Don Showalter said. “He doesn’t walk all stooped over. He doesn’t try to hide because he’s big. This is who I am. It’s the old commercial where you’re comfortable in your own skin. I think he is.”
 
 
Vanover doesn’t even have his driver’s license yet. He still has several years remaining of possible growth. From a young age, doctors projected he would be around 6-11. He had that beat by the end of eighth grade and it’s possible he could be 7-5 or better by the time he heads off to college in 2018.
 
He does have a driving permit of which he is proud. He practices driving in his parents’ Toyota Avalon and Chevy Edge. He has to put the driver’s seat all the way back to feel comfortable.
 
“It’s kind of like riding a go-cart sometimes,” Vanover joked.
 
While Vanover towers over even some of his extremely large teammates, he is skinny and is focused on adding muscle and weight to his frame so he is not easily pushed around in the post. He made it a goal to reach 210 pounds by the end of the school year, which he achieved. Now he wants to be 220 pounds by the time school resumes in the fall. That could be tough with as much as he has been and will be playing basketball this summer.
 
“He could be really good,” Showalter says of Vanover’s future. “He will be a major college player. This is projecting obviously but he could be a force in the league for 10-15 years because of his size and what he can do. You hate to say that about a 15-year-old. You don’t want to put any pressure on him, but he’s got the tools to do that.”
 
Vanover is not the typical big man in the post at this stage. While he has always been one of the biggest kids in his class, he sprouted from 6-foot to 7-foot in the span of a little more than a year. Prior to that year of extreme growth, he focused much of his attention on the basketball court on developing a jump shot and being able to handle the ball. His mother, Robyn, played basketball at Arkansas.
 
“It’s kind of been natural,” Vanover said. “My mom was a good mid-range shooter when she was in college and it kind of carried on to me. I’ve just always been shooting from the outside in my driveway and I was just shooting everywhere I was.”
 
 
Those skills haven’t left him as he has grown. Showalter and Vanover’s teammates compare him to Dallas Mavericks big man Dirk Nowitzki or former Wisconsin forward Frank Kaminsky, at least in term of his ability to shoot from the perimeter.
 
“You can tell that he’s kind of young, but there is an extreme upside,” said Wendell Carter Jr., a 6-10 product of the Atlanta area. “I see so much potential in him. We just go at it in every practice and try to make each other better. He makes me better by having to shoot over him and I make him better by getting him stronger and stuff.
 
“His shot is like, he’s like the next Dirk. He has a really nice shot on him. He really caught me off guard when I first saw him. I thought he was going to be just the big man catching it and putting it in, but he sets screens and pops. He’s a pretty good shooter.”
 
Vanover said he is working on becoming a better post presence. It’s going to be a process once he completes his time with the national team and returns home because he won’t often face other players as big and strong as those he is facing this summer. Some of the videos of him playing for his high school team in Little Rock, show him dwarfing every other player on the court.
 
“It’s something new, especially where I am from,” said Jordan Brown, a 6-10 forward from Roseville, Calif. “There is nobody over my height. They’re either shorter than me or they meet my height. I’ve never really had to guard somebody that is like 7-foot-3. I’m used to being the big guy.”
 
 
Vanover said he is earning attention these day for more than just being the big kid. Making the U-16 team, even having the opportunity, has many of his friends and peers looking up to him. He said he takes that responsibility seriously and doesn’t want to do anything to disappoint them or his family.
 
Yes, he’s a 15-year-old who, at least in some respects, feels like a role model.
 
“Everybody looks up to me pretty much and not just physically,” he said. “They look at me as someone who they can look up to. …It’s kind of a lot, but it’s not really at a big level.”
 
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