He faces an uphill battle in the political arena, too: President Obama won Oregon by 16 percentage points in 2008, and the last time a Republican was elected governor in the state was 1982. But polls have put Dudley in a virtual dead heat with his Democratic opponent, former Gov. John A. Kitzhaber. (The most recent poll, released last Wednesday by SurveyUSA, put Dudley ahead by 2 percentage points, within the margin of error.)  Dudley’s advisers say they hope to replicate the kind of jobs-focused campaign that helped win governorships for Republicans last year in two other states that went for Obama, New Jersey and Virginia.  And his celebrity status — he played for the Portland Trail Blazers from 1993 to 1997 and 2001 to 2003, and has lived in Portland’s suburbs since — has not hurt.  “Playing in the N.B.A., you’re used to getting attention, and it’s normal to have people come up to you and talk to you about sports,” Dudley said. “Now, people are coming up to you and talking about their life, and what’s going on, and their frustrations with what’s happening in our state, and you really get to know people at a different level, and I’ve enjoyed that.”  But campaigning brings some unusual logistical challenges. At a visit to a nonprofit education group here, an office chair nearly collapsed underneath him as he tried to park his gangly frame. At a happy hour for young supporters, he tried to speak from a doorway — except he could not fit in the doorway.  Most people internalize as children that it is rude to point, but when a 6-11 man walks by, that bit of etiquette seems to be forgotten. On the campaign trail, onlookers tend to gawk, and many people introduce themselves by informing Dudley how tall he is.  Dudley does not seem to mind. “I’m a tall guy,” he said. “It’s something that happens.”  His advisers do not seem to mind, either.  “People want to shake his hand,” said Kerry Tymchuk, who was the state director for former Senator Gordon H. Smith, Republican of Oregon, and is an informal adviser to Dudley. “Some of it’s the Blazers factor, the celebrity factor, the fact he’s tall. But it’s certainly an asset when people want to meet you.”  A former treasurer for the National Basketball Players Association, Dudley said he was growing more comfortable as a politician. He has shown an ability to raise money, netting $2.73 million to Kitzhaber’s $1.76 million, according to the Oregon secretary of state’s office, which has allowed Dudley to run a steady diet of unchallenged television ads (the most recent features the head of the players union, Billy Hunter).  Among the contributors to Dudley’s campaign are N.B.A. Commissioner David Stern; the founder of Nike, Phil Knight; the coaches P. J. Carlesimo and Rick Carlisle; and his former Blazers teammates Clyde Drexler and Terry Porter.  “The voters of this state don’t get too excited about Republican governors, I can tell you that right now,” said Porter, who is a member of the campaign’s finance committee. “But he’s going to put in the tireless effort that he’s always been known for on the basketball court.”  Dudley, who has worked as a financial adviser since retiring from the N.B.A. in 2003 and also runs a foundation that helps children with diabetes, likes to tell people that “out of crisis comes opportunity.”  It is also what his advisers say will propel him into the governorship. Dudley is not running on social issues — he supports abortion rights and civil unions, for instance — but rather matters related to job creation and the economy. Oregon’s 10.5 percent unemployment rate is tied for the eighth highest in the country.  In doing so, Dudley is targeting the same breed of frustrated independent voters who last fall helped elect Republican governors Robert F. McDonnell in Virginia and Chris Christie in New Jersey (the better parallel of the two).  “He’s tried to focus attention on a classic Republican approach, which is to say he’s proposing tax cuts, and cutting taxes is always popular,” said Bill Lunch, the chairman of the political science department at Oregon State University and the political analyst for Oregon Public Broadcasting. “That kind of approach is one that certainly has worked well for many Republicans in many elections, so I don’t doubt that he’s got a real chance of winning.”  But unlike McDonnell and Christie, Dudley is running without any political experience. And although Dudley said politics was the dinner-table conversation in his house while he was growing up — his grandfather was the ambassador to Denmark during the Nixon administration — he admitted to The Oregonian last year that he was not sure if he had voted in a single election while playing in the N.B.A.  He also came under fire last month for declining to attend what was traditionally the first gubernatorial debate; critics suggested he did not want to face Kitzhaber. A spokesman denied that, saying that Dudley — who was vacationing with his family in Aspen, Colo., and also attended a meeting of the Republican Governors Association while he was there — looks forward to debating Kitzhaber.  Dudley said he viewed his lack of political experience as “a real positive”; when he talks about how he would bring a fresh perspective and clean slate to the governorship, he is not so subtly painting himself in opposition to Kitzhaber.  Kitzhaber’s campaign has a different view. “Mr. Dudley is more rookie than outsider,” said Jillian E. Schoene, Kitzhaber’s spokeswoman. “We fully expect to send him back to the development league at the end of this race.”  Dudley’s advisers scoff at that. For one thing, Dudley’s attempt to parlay N.B.A. fame into a political career is not without precedent; most notably, the former Knick Bill Bradley, a member of the Basketball Hall of Fame, served three terms as a Democratic senator from New Jersey.  Dudley’s bigger challenge, his supporters say, is avoiding being typecast as a jock or a celebrity.  “There’s an initial skepticism: who is this N.B.A. player who’s trying to run for governor?” said John C. Davis, a 27-year-old lawyer who is volunteering for the campaign. “But then people meet Chris, and that skepticism melts away.”  Dudley, for his part, finds that skepticism funny. “When I was playing in the N.B.A., it was, ‘Well, he’s from Yale, he’s too intellectual,’ ” he said. “Now it’s flipped back the other way.”  Dudley appears to like campaigning, and there is a certain joie de vivre to his days.  On a recent Saturday, Dudley, his wife and their three children attended a farmers’ market, a hot-air balloon festival and a rodeo. Or at least that was the plan. There were no hot-air balloons at the festival, and the bleachers sat empty at the rodeo, which was scheduled for that night, not the afternoon.  But the Dudleys did not seem to mind, and neither did their children, who were most interested in the various foods they could guilt their parents into buying them: waffles with strawberries at the farmers’ market, corn dogs at the balloon festival, barbecued ribs at the rodeo.  By and large, people approached Dudley to talk about basketball or his height, not politics. Perhaps the most intense policy debate of the day came when Dudley, his family and a campaign aide argued about the worthiness of mustard versus ketchup on corn dogs.  “It’s been all about food consumption,” said his wife, also named Chris, who the campaign likes to point out is a fifth-generation Oregonian (Dudley himself was born in Connecticut and went to high school in San Diego).  Dudley’s older son, 11-year-old Charles, sees another upside in his father’s campaign. He has already contacted Guinness World Records to find out how to get his father listed — assuming he wins the election.  “It’s just so funny: world’s tallest governor,” Charles said. “He’s got to be the tallest. Who could be taller?”  But like his father, Charles has embraced being a politician, too.  “It’s just for the fun of it,” he stressed in regard to his campaign for a world record. “I always think in my head, that’s not why we’re actually doing this.”  A version of this article appears in print on August 3, 2010, on Page B10 of the New York edition with the headline: Platform: Jobs. Experience: The N.B.A. Order Reprints| Today's Paper|Subscribe
Chris Dudley, who stands 6 feet 11 inches and played for the Nets and the Knicks during a 16-year career, stands out while campaigning to become Oregon’s governor.