Who is on the chart
| Player | Listed height | Position |
|---|---|---|
| Manute Bol | 7′ 7″ (231 cm) | Center |
| Gheorghe Mureșan | 7′ 7″ (231 cm) | Center |
| Yao Ming | 7′ 6″ (229 cm) | Center |
| Victor Wembanyama | 7′ 4″ (224 cm) | Center, power forward |
| Shaquille O’Neal | 7′ 1″ (216 cm) | Center |
| LeBron James | 6′ 9″ (206 cm) | Forward |
| Michael Jordan | 6′ 6″ (198 cm) | Shooting guard |
| Stephen Curry | 6′ 2″ (188 cm) | Point guard |
| Muggsy Bogues | 5′ 3″ (160 cm) | Point guard |
Bol and Mureșan share the record for the tallest players in NBA history; Bogues is the shortest. The five centers show how narrow the top of the league is: 6 inches separate O’Neal from the record, while the guards spread over more than a foot, from Jordan’s 6′ 6″ down to Bogues. The man in grey is the average American man, 5′ 9″ (175.3 cm), from the CDC’s NHANES 2015–2018 survey of adults 20 and over. He is there so you can see what these heights mean next to an ordinary person: Wembanyama stands 19 inches (48 cm) taller than him, and Bol almost 22 inches (56 cm), about a third taller.
Where the heights come from
Current players are listed at the heights on their NBA.com profiles, retired players at the heights on their Basketball-Reference pages, which follow the heights teams listed during their careers. Before the 2019–20 season the league told teams to certify every player’s height measured with shoes off, after years of listed heights that didn’t match what players really measured. Bol, Mureșan, Yao, O’Neal, Jordan and Bogues retired before that rule, so their heights come from the old listings.
Washington’s giants and its smallest guard
The Washington Bullets drafted both 7′ 7″ players, Bol in 1985 and Mureșan in 1993, and Bogues in 1987. For the 1987–88 season Bol and Bogues were teammates: the tallest and the shortest men ever to play in the league, on one roster, 28 inches apart. Remove everyone else from the chart and the summary puts Bogues’s eyes at about the height of Bol’s stomach.
Put yourself next to them
The chart holds 12 people and starts with 10, so you can add yourself and a friend under People. Switch the eye-level line to your name to see where you would be looking on each player, or sort shortest first to see where you fall in the line-up. To compare two players on their own, delete the rest (Undo brings them back): with two people the chart draws a bracket with the exact difference. Download the PNG to share the result; the image carries this page’s address.
The people you add, edit or remove on this page aren’t saved, so it always opens with the chart above (your head-height line setting, and a unit you pick here, are saved). To build a chart the browser remembers, use the height comparison chart.