Yet the Utah resident remained dumbfounded Thursday over why someone would steal a bike so large it is probably useless to anyone but him.
The road bike has an 80 centimeter carbon fiber-aluminum frame - about 50 percent larger than that for a normal-sized person. Trek never even included a serial number when it built the bicycle in 2006 because it is so unique.
"It's a stolen bike, not the end of the world," Bradley said from his home in Murray, about 10 miles south of Salt Lake City. "It's just kind of a weird story. It's not like I can go down to the bike shop and buy a new bike."
The bicycle, black with a "76" painted on the frame to denote Bradley's height, was taken Friday morning from a barn next to Bradley's gated home. Seven other bicycles used by his six children and wife weren't touched, nor were his boat, tools or even a $200 pair of Oakley sunglasses stuffed into his bicycle helmet.
Bradley could only guess someone grabbed the bike thinking it might fetch easy money at a pawn shop and maybe feed a drug habit. But he said the thief, or thieves, would have had to toss it into the back of a pickup or over a high fence.
"There's no way they could have ridden it away," he said. "It's kind of baffling. I think it will turn up."
Bradley's home on 3 acres is protected by an electronic gate, and backs up to Little Cottonwood Creek.
Inside his home, countertops and doorways are raised and an oversized animal-print chair sits behind his large chair. With a 44-inch inseam, even his pants must be custom-made.
Bradley said he took up bicycling a year after retiring from the NBA. Following a 13-year pro career, the former Brigham Young star had taken a year off to let his body, and knees, recover.
But he also packed on the pounds, ballooning from his playing weight of 275 pounds to 335.
"I just wasn't feeling good," Bradley said.
Bicycling the roads and canyons of Utah was the solution. He's shed about 30 pounds of fat after making bicycling part of a daily routine. He's logged several thousand miles, including many "century rides" - rides of 100 miles or more. Bradley also rode from Logan, Utah, to Jackson Hole, Wyo., last year.
"It's changed my body (composition) and when I ride the bike in the morning, I want to eat healthy the rest of the day. It's a mental game I play with myself," he said.
The 39-year-old is president of the board of directors at West Ridge Academy, a youth residential treatment center in Utah. In 2010, he ran for a seat in the Utah House of Representatives but lost. He's contemplating another run for public office.
Bradley has been in touch with Trek engineers in Dallas who built him the first one to see if they still have the parts. But for now, he's trying to figure out how to stay in shape without the bike, which he uses for spinning inside when the weather is bad.
"I'm not a racer, but I love to ride," he said on a sun-splashed fall day. "A day like today would have been perfect."
Bradley played for the Philadelphia Sixers from 1993 to 1995.
