Advanced statistics and analytics website Five Thirty Eight is back at it again with another outside of the box and interesting piece about the association. They are breaking down which teams in the NBA are the tallest and throwing in some other crazy facts about the amount of height in the NBA in general.
In order to gather the data the website chose to utilize the height given to each current NBA player at the draft combine and not the team media guide which is known to distort reality. The major problem with this strategy is the fact that many young players grow after they enter the NBA (Greek Freak anyone?) but these numbers are still more accurate than doing it any other way.
Here is the chart ranking NBA teams in height courtesy of fivethirtyeight.com:
The Bucks are the tallest team on average, with an average height of 6’7.25″, while the Celtics are the shortest (thanks Isaiah Thomas). Interesting to see the Warriors as the NBA’s second tallest team when they lost two seven footers in Andrew Bogut and Festus Ezeli and a 6’8″ player in Harrison Barnes. They gained a 6’11” Kevin Durant, 6’11” Zaza Pachulia and 7’1″ Javale McGee though.
Increased height doesn’t necessarily translate to wins, not surprising in today’s NBA, as six of the 10 shortest teams made the postseason in 2016, while only three of the 10 tallest teams made the playoffs.
Boban Marjanovic of the Pistons is the tallest player in the NBA at 7’3″, while 5’8″ Kay Felder of the Cavaliers is the shortest player in the NBA. If you stacked every NBA player on top of one another they would be 212 feet taller than the tallest building in the world (The Burj Khalifa in Dubai). The article also stated that the average size of an NBA player is 6’6″ 220 lbs. I did some research to compare that to the average size of an adult male worldwide and the difference is size-able. The average male in the U.S. is 5’9.5″ and weighs 195 pounds. So basically an average American is the size of the absolute smallest players in the NBA.
