Gigantic Basketball Tween Takes On Tiny Opponents And 8-Foot Rims, Leaves No Survivors

Here we have a highlight reel brimming with the exploits of Olivier Rioux, a 12-year-old basketball player who is said to stand at 6 feet and 9 inches. Since most 12-year-olds are not 6-foot-9, you can probably guess how this is going to go for Rioux’s poor opponents:

What’s truly wild about these clips is not that Rioux is allowed to play against other 12-year-olds—I mean, if he’s really 12, what are you gonna do?—but that the game is being played on 8-foot rims! According to my colleague Drew Magary, who has spawned many children and watched some of them play in youth basketball leagues, kids are usually playing on standard 10-foot rims by the time they are 12. So what the heck is going on here? Did the league organizers just decide to use short rims because they wanted to see how funny it would be to watch Rioux play with them?

Fair enough.