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Why Did Kevin Durant Fabricate His Height?
Kevin Durant kept a secret for years. Of course, no one who played against him was surprised, but it did cause some confusion among spectators at times. Despite towering above many of his opponents, Durant was categorized as 6-foot-9 on NBA rosters.
Those who saw Durant’s head pop above the heads of other players of the same height were taken aback.
The mystery has vanished.
In 2019, the NBA cracked down on height exaggeration in both directions.
It resulted in the league appearing exactly the same as it always did, but with definitions that no longer matched what we thought we knew.
Kevin Durant was not the first to assert that he was shorter than he appeared
Kevin Durant’s listed height in basketball circles was 6-foot-9 for more than a decade.
The truth was that he was much taller.
But he’s far from the first NBA player to be a few inches too short.
Bill Walton, a Hall of Famer, was classified as 6-foot-11 throughout his career.
But, as the late David Halberstam discovered in The Breaks of the Game, his book about his season with the Portland Trail Blazers in 1979-80, Walton’s 6-foot-11 stature was as legendary as Bigfoot.
Photos of Kareem Abdul-Jabbar (listed at 7-foot-2) and Walton frequently appeared to be almost similar in height.
Walton claimed to be 6-foot-11 the last time he was measured, according to Halberstam:
“He was always labeled as 6-foot-11.” Never exceed 7 feet. Six-eleven was tall, he remarked to pals, but seven feet was a freak.’
Of course, Walton’s remark regarding the last time he was measured was accompanied by an asterisk.
That happened his junior year at UCLA.
While Walton wanted to escape an awkward label about his height, Durant’s storytelling about his height was motivated by strictly pragmatic factors.
Kevin Durant confessed to lying about his height
Kevin Durant told the Wall Street Journal in 2016 that he went by several heights on different occasions:
“I’m 7 feet tall when I’m chatting to women.” I’m 6-foot-9 in basketball circles.”
It was all about Durant’s favored skill set.
He sees himself as a tiny forward. A 6-foot-9 small forward is not uncommon.
When he first entered the NBA, a 6-foot-10 or 6-foot-11 man was not considered a small forward.
That was either a power forward or a center.
“But truly,” Durant said in 2016, “I’ve always felt it was fun to claim I’m a 6-foot-9 small forward.”
“That is, in fact, the prototypical size for a small forward.” Any taller than that, and they’ll start calling him a power forward.”
As the NBA has become more positionless over the previous decade, this has become less of a concern.
What hasn’t changed is Durant’s unique combination of size, shooting, and ballhandling.
It has earned him an NBA MVP, two NBA Finals MVPs, and four scoring titles.
His deadly skill set, combined with his size, earned him a spot on the NBA’s 75th-anniversary squad.
Also, read Giancarlo Stanton, Matthew Christopher Schnell, John Daly’s Married Life:
The NBA’s 2019 crackdown standardized measurements
Kevin Durant’s days of exaggerating his height by an inch or two came to an end in 2019.
The NBA implemented updated height measurement techniques.
According to Dennis Young of the New York Daily News, the league required all players to be measured without shoes.
Their official height was determined by this measurement. No more speculating.
Some players grew in stature. Many others grew shorter.
Tacko Fall, now a member of the Cleveland Cavaliers, shrunk from 7-foot-7 to 7-foot-5.
Boston Celtics big man Robert Williams has been downgraded from 6-foot-10 to 6-foot-8 on the team’s official roster.
Boban Marjanovi, on the other hand, rose from 7-foot-3 to 7-foot-4.
Despite his insistence that he is a “legit 6-foot-8,” his official basketball measurement became 6-foot-10.
However, the bottom line stays the same.
Kevin Durant can be whatever he wants as long as he continues to put the ball in the basket on a regular basis.
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