New Measurement Reveals Zion Williamson Only 5’6!

NEW ORLEANS, LA — The NBA has rolled out a new league policy that requires teams to submit the official heights and ages of their players prior to the upcoming season. Submitted heights must be verified by a team doctor. The rule was implemented as part of an effort to stop teams from misrepresenting the heights of their players. The verified heights were released Monday morning with a few notable takeaways:

• Kevin Durant is listed at 6’10, below the 7 foot mark some were expecting.
• Kemba Walker is 6’0 flat, which is what the All-Star has always claimed, despite the skeptics.
• Tacko Fall did not measure up to his self-reported height of 7’7, he measured in at 7’5.
• J.J. Barea measure in at 5’10, which is two inches shorter than he was listed at last year.
• Zion Williamson measured in at 5’6, a full foot shorter than what was reported while he was at Duke.

NBA analysts and fans alike were shocked over the news that Williamson, the first overall pick in the 2019 draft, was actually four inches shorter than the average height of an American man. In July, Pelicans Executive Vice President of Basketball Operations, David Griffin, was nearly salivating at the prospect that his prized draft pick might not be done growing. Now, Griffin despondently accepts the fact that Zion may never reach average height.

Amidst this stunning revelation is the question as to how Zion was able to conceal his true height for an entire season at Duke. Early reports suggest most of Zion’s dunks must have occurred on eight foot baskets. This would suggest that Duke played an entire season on hoops lowered below the standard NCAA height. An anonymous Duke student and team manager for the basketball team has also implied that Duke’s basketball games were never broadcasted live. The student went on to describe, in detail, the painstaking process in which student managers would digital alter Zion’s size on film.

“We would finish games five hours before the televised tipoff. As soon as time expired all of the student managers would dash off to the film room, where we would digitally edit every frame of the game footage. The boosters even brought in Peter Jackson to help us with the process. He showed us all kinds of editing tricks he used for the Lord of the Rings. He told us, ‘Size is the optical illusion of relativity. A hobbit, for instance, can only be big or small in comparison to something else. Zion is small for a man, but he would be colossal by hobbit standards.’”

Williamson notably skipped all pre-draft workouts, which is not uncommon for consensus number one picks. However, this revelation puts a new degree of scrutiny on the Duke standout’s decision to pass on these workouts. It appears to have been a blatant attempt to avoid an official height measurement.

The Pelicans have been scrambling to keep the situation under wraps since the first day Zion arrived at the practice facility a foot shorter than advertised. The organization has demanded that Williamson wear Nike branded stilts anytime he is outside of the practice facility. It is unclear if they will continue this policy going forward. A representative from New Orleans did not respond to our requests for a comment.