The league’s height listings are littered with inaccuracies as players aim to seem shorter or taller; Kevin Durant is bigger than 6-foot-9
Kevin Durant is 6-foot-9. That’s his height by all official accounts—the NBA, the Oklahoma City Thunder, his Wikipedia page—and that’s how Durant will be described throughout the basketball playoffs.As it turns out, though, there is one person who disagrees. His name is Kevin Durant.
This mysterious revelation came during a routine discussion after a regular-season victory over the Los Angeles Clippers. The Thunder star was describing his game-winning block on the Clippers’ Chris Paul, and that’s when he confessed. “He’s 6 feet tall,” Durant said, “and I’m 6-11.”
It was a rare example of Durant slipping up by mentioning his actual height. Since joining the league, Durant has gone with an extremely conservative height, one that Thunder teammate Steven Adams calls “bull—.”
He’s not alone. NBA game programs across the country are littered with inaccuracies when it comes to player height. The widespread misrepresentations highlight a funny thing about the NBA: Its players, despite being taller than most of the other 2.7 billion men on earth, lie about their height like everyone else.
Durant’s case is particularly odd, though, since he stretched the truth to make himself shorter. Durant, whose team is tied 1-1 with the San Antonio Spurs in the Western Conference semifinals, said he often lies about his height depending on whom he’s speaking with.
“For me, when I’m talking to women, I’m 7 feet,” he said. “In basketball circles, I’m 6-9.”
There’s actually a basketball reason behind Durant’s white lie. “But really, I’ve always thought it was cool to say I’m a 6-9 small forward,” he said. “Really, that’s the prototypical size for a small forward. Anything taller than that, and they’ll start saying, ‘Ah, he’s a power forward.’ ”
A handful of other high-profile players seemingly cheated themselves by an inch or two to avoid the distinction of being labeled a 7-footer. Flip Saunders, the late Minnesota Timberwolves coach and executive, often said he referred to Kevin Garnett as “6-foot-13” because, like Durant now, the former MVP feared people would view him as a center as opposed to a power forward. Garnett, who was unavailable for comment, is still listed at 6-foot-11.
Stars from previous generations are more open about why they didn’t want to be labeled as 7-footers: It would only draw more attention to how much bigger they were than everyone else. Bill Walton, who claimed he was 6-foot-11, was once asked why he was officially shorter than the 7-foot Hakeem Olajuwon, even though he towered over Olajuwon when they guarded each other. “The floor’s warped,” he said. That old habit dies hard: To this day Walton contends he’s only 6-foot-11.
It’s far more common to find players who are listed as being an inch or two taller than they actually are. Height sleuthing has become easier than ever now as a number of websites provide rookies’ measurements from the draft combine, with and without shoes, allowing fans to identify which players receive the most generous listings.
Dallas Mavericks guard JJ Barea, for example, was 5-foot-10 without shoes and 5-foot-10¾ inches with shoes, according to DraftExpress’s data. According to the NBA, though, Barea is 6-feet.
Barea first noticed the discrepancy years ago when he was introduced during the team’s starting lineups. “I remember laughing when they said, ‘6 feet,’ because me and about 20,000 other people in the arena knew that was a lie,” he said. “I’m 5-foot-10 on a good day.”
Barea insists he never asked anyone with the team to inflate his height. A spokeswoman for the Mavericks said most teams use combine numbers or a player’s college height, but team staffers—who perform physicals before training camp—may be asked by younger players fighting for a roster spot to adjust their metrics to make one of them a wee bit taller. (A Thunder spokesman confirmed that Durant did the opposite of this as a rookie, by asking a team staffer to list him at 6-foot-9 as opposed to something taller.)
The most common reason for these variations, though, is actually pretty simple: There’s a huge degree of latitude because the NBA doesn’t require players to use their “in shoes” measurements. That’s why someone like Durant can accurately claim to be 6-foot-9—his draft combine measurement without shoes—even though just about everyone else in the league is using a different metric.
With no standardized way of tracking height, a number of players have seen random, year-to-year growth spurts—or sudden bouts of shrinking—when they change teams. And a handful have seen their heights change even while staying with the same team.
According to the league’s data, which has been kept loosely since 1994, former guard Dan dikkau went from being 6-feet tall with the Clippers in 2008 to 6-foot-3 in training camp with the Suns in 2009. He turned 30 years old in between.
Connecticut coach Kevin Ollie alternated between 6-foot-2 and 6-foot-4 for years with Philadelphia. He was also listed at 6-foot-3 once. It’s still happening today, too. Los Angeles Lakers forward Tarik Black was officially listed as 6-foot-9 this season. Last year he was 6-foot-11.
Warriors coach Steve Kerr also had a number of odd height changes, according to NBA data, going from 6-foot-3 in 2001, to 6-foot-1 in 2002 before shooting back up to 6-foot-3 in 2003. “I don’t know,” said Kerr, who said he’s really 6-foot-3. “I guess it just sounds better on the program.”
Even abnormally tall forwards don’t seem as sensitive about the 7-foot threshold anymore, and that’s in part because of the positionless nature of today’s NBA. Giannis Antetokounmpo, who was drafted three years ago by the Milwaukee Bucks at 6-foot-9, but has since grown to 6-foot-11 at age 21, says he’d have no issue with being known as a legitimate 7-footer if he grew another inch. In fact, he said, it would be kind of cool.
“Honestly,” says Antetokounmpo, who has been tabbed as the Bucks’ starting point guard next season, “I want to get taller.”
I always thought KD was 6'11 this whole time though. Like I didnt even know that he was listed as 6'9 until the topic came up this week.
