The first decade of the 21st century was a wild time in the NBA. The three-point revolution had not yet come to fruition, but the internet era had begun, and the massive volumes of data that came with it began to influence NBA roster construction. Basketball was on the path to being “solved”; in due course, size would no longer be the priority.
Nevertheless, when it came to the NBA Draft, impulsivity, stereotypes and the allure of the unknown still ruled the day. And as anyone will tell you, top-level basketball is played by tall people. So who could pass up a 7’5 player built like a gasworks?
Clearly, the Dallas Mavericks could not. At the height of the madness, the Mavericks drafted a little-known Russian behemoth named Pavel Podkolzin with the 21st pick in the 2004 NBA Draft, ahead of players included Tony Allen, Kevin Martin and Anderson Varejao. Or rather, it would be more accurate to say that the Utah Jazz drafted him on Dallas’s behalf, in a pre-arranged trade for a 2005 first-round pick that would later be used on Linas Kleiza.
No one, not even Mrs Pavel Podkolzin, would deign to suggest that Pavel had as good of a professional basketball career as Linas Kleiza did. But with both now in retirement, Pavel’s life has gone in more directions.
Having Fun In Retirement
The previously long-forgotten Podkolzin already made the American sports news cycle once this week when he became the tallest footballer – as in, soccer player – thought to have ever played any paid level of the game anywhere in the world.
Of course, standing 7’5 and one of the very tallest humans anywhere in the world, Podkolzin is likely to be the tallest at anything he ever does. Yet with his appearance in his first professional football match when he started for Amkal Moscow in Round 2 of the 2025–26 Russian Cup, he set new standards, if only on the team sheet.
It is not just football, though, where Pavel has been enjoying his basketball retirement. He has also begun an acting career back in his home country. Initially contacted on Instagram by a producer who had simply typed “the tallest person” into a search engine, Podkolzin would go on to be cast in a TV series called 1703, a black comedy detective series, playing the part of a assassin named Sasha the Unicorn, appearing in three episodes.
1703 was Pavel’s first acting gig, but not his only one. To date, Podkolzin – according to information gleaned from a combination of interviews with the Russian press, his IMDB page, his Russian IMDB equivalent which for some reason claims he has blonde hair, and his own social media posts – has appeared (or will soon have appeared) in three other series;
-
- Последний богcатырь. Наследие (approximately translating to The Last Knight. Legacy) is a comedy adventure series based on a successful film franchise, in which Pavel plays Ambal, a “big guy”. It is unclear without having seen it (only the first episode appears on YouTube, which Pavel is not in) what the role involves aside from being big, or whether he speaks, but Podkolzin appears in five episodes.
-
- Волшебный участок (The Magic Plot) is another comedy series, in which a former police sniper joins the “Department for Combating Fairytale Crimes”, which investigates crimes committed by fairytale characters who secretly live among people. It is available in its entirety on YouTube – Pavel plays a character named Sandugach, who, on the basis of Podkolzin’s Instagram posts on the topic, is seemingly a bit cold.
-
- Маша и Медведи (Masha and the Bear) is a preschool comedy cartoon that has been running for seven series, in which Pavel is set to have a role when the eighth series airs later this year. According to IMDB, he is to play a character called Velikan. In the absence of any other information, it will be hereby assumed that Velikan is a cartoon bear.
https://bogatir.fandom.com/Pavel Podkolzin, appearing as an “Ambala” (or “Big Guy”) in the Russian TV series The Last Knight
Pavel’s Short Mavericks Career
It is not intended as disrespect to say that, perhaps, Pavel’s post-basketball life is more impressive than his basketball career. Despite making the NBA, he almost never played in it – and nor did he play anywhere of note afterwards.
In two seasons with the Mavericks, Podkolzin appeared in only six games, for a total of 28 minutes. Hampered by injuries, he was also never up to speed with the NBA game, and was under-skilled compared to the competition. Even in an era of behemoth center development projects, Pavel was not up to snuff.
As a demonstration of this, Podkolzin’s second season saw him make only one appearance, an 18-minute outing in the final game of the 2005-06 regular season in a spectacular 85-71 loss to the Los Angeles Clippers. With the Mavericks having already won 60 games, they rested everyone they could in anticipation of the playoffs – on that night, Podkolzin scored 3 points, grabbed 7 rebounds and blocked one shot. They were the only points and block he would ever record.
Too Big For Basketball
The Mavericks closed out that game with a lineup of Rawle Marshall, Josh Powell, Didier Ilunga-Mbenga, DeSagana Diop and Pavel Podkolzin. [Game footage is not immediately available, which is probably best because it would test the limits of plausibility and probably fry some minds. For that brief period, Mbenga was at the de facto small forward position; Diop, meanwhile, hit a three.] It was a game very much with a last-day-of-semester feel. And it also represented both the best – and last – moments of Podkolzin’s NBA career.
Despite having two seasons left on his guaranteed rookie scale contract, the Mavericks waived Pavel in the summer of 2006, whereupon he returned to his home land. And although he would continue to play basketball until 2019, it was at a low level; aside from his first season back, when he played for the since-fallen giant that was Khimki, Podkolzin’s final 12 years all came at the semi-professional level.
As big as Pavel was, he was perhaps too big for basketball. While not completely immobile at his peak, Podkolzin’s body struggled to hold up with all the running, jumping and agility required in the sport of basketball, and frequent injuries cut down his ceiling long before he got near reaching it. He is certainly also too big for any competitive level of football.
Acting, however? There, his size could work wonders. If any Russian TV producers need an extremely large man to look menacing, Pavel is available, ready to work – and now armed with plenty of references.
Like Heavy Sports’s content? Be sure to follow us.
This article was originally published on Heavy Sports
The post Mavericks Legend Pavel Podkolzin Begins Acting Career appeared first on Heavy Sports.