70sFan wrote:Would you make videos like that for more centers?
Also, is Bellamy really like Deandre Jordan in terms of size? I always thought he was clearly taller than Russell.
Yes I'll be making these for many more.
If you can believe it, I was fortunate through exhaustive news archive searching to find the "barefoot" heights of 19 centers Wilt Chamberlain played against as well as armspan data for 7 more. I'm waiting to release this data in full for a project that I'm currently working on but I found it interesting that Bellamy, Thurmond, and Russell were all virtually the same height!
Bill Russell 6-9 and 5/8 (6-9.63)
Walt Bellamy 6-9 and 3/4 (6-9.75)
Nate Thurmond 6-9 and 7/8 (6-9.88)
Note - it isn't true to just assume they all listed barefoot. Bellamy is a good example of someone with a modern 1.25" boost. According to draftexpress info of all active 2017 centers, the 2017 NBA centers on average boost their barefoot height 1.2" beyond their barefoot heights (with a tiny handful listing barefoot or underbilling, and most overbilling). In Wilt's era, it appears the bigs (while still rife with great exaggerations, to under-billing depending on who it is) averaged +0.6" inflation simply due to a greater ratio of players listing underbilled or more honestly. Still plenty that overbilled like modern centers though.
I've got at least as much info on the non-centers back then too, and so far they only an average +0.25" inflation - these non-bigs of that era do indeed seem to underbill surprisingly often. I didn't calculate the non-centers of the modern game yet but I'd bet it's still 1 inch plus average inflation in today's league so those non-centers of that era are potentially the real group of guys who would be penciling in much higher list heights if viewed in modern contexts. Examples like Elgin Baylor and Joe Caldwell, two superstars who listed "6-5" but both were 6-5.5 barefoot! Easily 6-7 today! Plus, I have data that Elgin played as heavy as 246! That blows my mind because it's the kind of thing that can change everyone's perception about them. They list like today's guards list but really, they were definitely good size forwards. Anyways I went off on a tangent. Yeah, Bellamy was 6-9 and 3/4 - and fwiw his 225 listed weight appears to be way short, he was 240 even as a student at Indiana, he probably was 245-260 most of his career in the 1960's then 260-270 by the time he was with the Hawks. Thurmond's weight is sort of the opposite - Thurmond is lighter than most people realize. He's ripped but he's also got some really lean legs. A guy like Bellamy outweighed him by good margin as the heaviest figure I was able to find for Thurmond was 240, and he was most often cited around 235.
