Getty Image / Jonathan Bachman
It’s no secret that depth charts at every level list players at incorrect heights and weights. A five-foot-nine guard in high school may actually be listed at six-foot on the sheet and on college website you see players listed at heights that you know can’t be true.
The NBA is attempting to cut that out. Marc Stein of the New York Times reported that the league is now requiring teams to submit “precise height and age” of every player within the first week of training camps.
It turns out this new protocol has claimed its first victim, none other than first-overall pick Zion Williamson.
Per Shams Charania of The Athletic, the Pelicans officially recorded Williamson’s height at six-foot-six, which is news seeing as how he was listed as six-foot-seven while at Duke and on New Orlean’s official roster after the Pels selected him No. 1 overall.
The difference of one-inch in height for a guy like Zion isn’t going to change things, in fact, it makes it that much more impressive how high he gets above the rim with us now knowing he’s only six-and-a-half feet tall.
Maybe it even makes him that much more appealing on paper for the Pelicans and NBA purists as saying a six-foot-six guy banging down low and also rotating to play the three spot just flat-out sounds better than a six-foot-seven guy. That may be grabbing at nothing, as if Zion needed yet another attractive attribute around his name.
The traditional center doesn’t really exist in today’s NBA as lineups are becoming more balanced in the small-ball era centered around speed and three-point shooting.
Draymond Green is the one guy that pops out, height and position-wise, with Zion as he can play all over the court at six-foot-seven. Williamson might have him beat in the vertical game though.