Thoughts and best wishes to Scot Pollard

[Roy H.]

BOSTON -- At 6-foot-11, Scot Pollard's size helped him play more than a decade in the NBA, earning him a championship ring with the Boston Celtics in 2008.

Now it might be killing him.

Pollard needs a heart transplant, an already dire predicament that is made more difficult because few donors can provide him with a pump big and strong enough to supply blood to his extra-large body. He was admitted to intensive care at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, Tennessee, on Tuesday, and he will wait there until a donor surfaces who was big enough to be a match.

"I'm staying here until I get a heart," he said in a text message to The Associated Press on Wednesday night. "My heart got weaker. [Doctors] agree this is my best shot at getting a heart quicker."

At nearly 7 feet tall and with a playing weight of 260 pounds, Pollard's size rules out most potential donors for a heart to replace the one that -- due to a genetic condition that was likely triggered by a virus he contracted in 2021 -- has been beating an extra 10,000 times per day. Half of his siblings have the same condition -- as did his father, who died at 54, when Scot was 16.

[Redz]

That’s horrible. 

[ozgod]

Prayers up for Scot, he's a member of the Celtics family.

[radiohead]

https://www.thescore.com/nba/news/2840065/former-nba-big-man-scot-pollard-waits-in-hospital-for-heart-transplant

This is sad news. I didn’t know he was battling some sort of disease. He had some nice moments with that 08 champion team.

[Moranis]

https://basketball.realgm.com/wiretap/274731/Scot-Pollard-Receives-Heart-Transplant

[President Red]

https://www2.kusports.com/sports/2024/feb/16/donor-heart-found-for-nba-champion-former-jayhawk-scot-pollard/


I haven't heard his name in a while.  It must have been very difficult to find an appropriate donor.

[edited to add]

Thanks for combining with the other thread; I hadn't seen it before I posted.

My late father-in-law was a heart and lung transplant surgeon.  Back when Jeff Green and Chris Wilcox were having their cardiac issues, I discussed them with him. 

I remember him noting that people that big were prone to more heart issues than one might otherwise expect.  I don't recall if that comment was based on his anecdotal experience or something he had found in the literature.  From the article, it seems Pollard has a genetic predisposition, but finding an appropriate donor heart might have been extra difficult both due to the rarity of donors of the right size and the higher likelihood of a potential donor having had cardiac issues of his own.