Tall Tales in N.B.A. Don't Fool Players

Nets center Jason Collins is listed at 7 feet tall in the National Basketball Association's player register.

Truth be told, Collins needs a lift to even come close.

"In sneakers, with my orthotics, ankle braces and two pairs of socks, I'm a good 6-11 1/2," said a chuckling Collins, whose Nets are playing in the N.B.A. finals against the San Antonio Spurs. "It's almost a joke."

Collins, who is more like 6-8, is not the only basketball player telling a tall tale.

Many N.B.A. hopefuls exaggerate their height while in high school or college to make themselves more appealing to coaches and scouts who prefer taller players. Collins, for example, remembers the exact day he picked to experience a growth spurt.

"Media day, my junior year," Collins, a Stanford graduate, said. "I told our sports information guy that I wanted to be 7 feet, and it's been 7 feet ever since."

Collins isn't fooling any of his teammates.

Dikembe Mutombo, a four-time defensive player of the year, is a legitimate 7-2 and said he and Collins do not exactly see eye to eye.

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"They're giving him four inches," Mutombo said. "There are a lot of guys who list heights that they are not."

Mutombo said Larry Johnson, the former Hornets and Knicks forward, was among the biggest exaggerators. While at the Nevada-Las Vegas, Johnson was supposedly 6-7. At the N.B.A.'s annual predraft camp in Chicago, however, he barely topped 6-3.

"When guys are checked out in Chicago, it's the amazing shrinking measurement," Marty Blake, the N.B.A.'s director of scouting, said.

The N.B.A. doesn't measure players, which is probably why Charles Barkley, the 1993 most valuable player, got away with being listed at 6-6. Many who played against Barkley said he was, at most, 6-4.

Several active players, including Philadelphia 76ers point guard Allen Iverson, are also practicing fuzzy measurement. Iverson, the league's 2001 M.V.P., is officially listed at 6-1.

"There's no way," Spurs forward Malik Rose said. "He's like 5-11."

Rose, who is listed at 6-7, admits to having fibbed about his height. Rose said he is actually 6-6 but felt he needed another inch or two to entice N.B.A. scouts to consider an undersize forward from Drexel.

"Nobody was going to come see a 6-6 center from a low-level Division I school, so they gave me that one inch that helped," Rose said.

Tim Frank, an N.B.A. spokesman, said the league counts on its teams to give accurate measurements of its players, who do not necessarily need to change their height.

Victor Dolan, head of the chiropractic division at Doctors' Hospital in Staten Island, said players could increase their height by being measured early in the morning, because vertebrae become compressed as the day progresses. A little upside-down stretching does not hurt, either.

"If you get measured on an inversion machine, and do it when you first wake up, maybe you could squeeze out an extra inch and a half," Dolan said.

Some players prefer to be smaller than they actually are. Blake said Walt Bellamy, a Hall of Famer, asked to be listed at 6-11 even though he was 7 feet tall.

"I know he was 7 feet, but Walt thought it made him look extraordinarily tall," Blake said.

The Spurs veteran Steve Kerr laughed when asked which players lied most about their height. He cited the World Basketball League, which originally permitted only players under 6-5.

Kerr said aspiring N.B.A. players, many of whom were listed at 6-8 and over, wound up honing their skills in the W.B.L., which is defunct.

"They lost four inches in a six-month period," said Kerr, who is listed at, and actually stands, 6-3.

The former All-Star Nate Archibald, who grew up in New York and had the nickname Tiny, said no one he played with or against cared that he was 6-1 while he was zipping past defenders on the asphalt courts.

"In the city, it wasn't how tall you were," he said. "It was about developing a rep."

Plenty of N.B.A. teams will be interested in point guard Earl Boykins, a free agent who at 5-5 is the shortest player in the league this season.

"The N.B.A. is so biased toward guys that are taller," Boykins said. "Either you can play or you can't."

Commissioner David Stern, whose height is not listed in the N.B.A. register but was once estimated to be 5-9, said the disparity between reality and hype only added to the intrigue of the game.

"If they told you the exact heights, they would have to eliminate you," Stern said. "It's one of the best-kept secrets in sports."

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