Wembanyama’s height no longer a mystery: 7 feet, 3-1/2 inches is official, Spurs say

The official height for the No. 1 pick in this year’s draft, the San Antonio Spurs said Wednesday, is 7 feet, 3-1/2 inches — and that was measured without shoes, per NBA guidelines.

That’s a half-inch taller than Wembanyama said he was back in October, when he was in Las Vegas for a pair of exhibition games. (His official height then was 2.21 meters, he said, and he’s now nearly 2.23 meters.) Which makes sense, given that he was 18 then, has turned 19 since and it’s reasonable to think he might still have a bit of growing left.

He has been listed by various sites as anywhere between 7-foot-2 and 7-foot-5, in part because of how he towers over other 7-footers when photographed standing with them. The NBA listed him at 7-foot-4 in the league’s guide for last week’s draft, but that was not based off any official measurement.

The 7-3.5 figure puts Wembanyama on pace to be the NBA’s second-tallest player this coming season. Officially, the NBA listed Boban Marjanovic at 7-foot-4 this past season, making him the league’s tallest player. Kristaps Porzingis, who played for Washington and has since been traded to Boston, was listed at 7-foot-3.

Almost every player in the draft had their height measured by the NBA in recent weeks, most of them at the draft combine that was held in Chicago back in May. Wembanyama was not at the combine; his team in France still had its season going on at that time, so he couldn’t get to Chicago to be measured.

But when he arrived in San Antonio this past weekend, the Spurs got the official number.

The Chicago Bulls and center Nikola Vucevic have agreed to a $60 million, three-year extension, keeping the two-time All-Star off the free agent market.

The move was hardly a surprise.

Bulls executive vice president of basketball operations Arturas Karnisovas and Vucevic had expressed a desire to get a deal done.

Vucevic averaged 17.6 points and 11 rebounds while playing in all 82 games for the first time in his career. The consistently productive 6-foot-10 center turns 33 in October. He has averaged 17 points and 10.5 rebounds over 12 seasons with Philadelphia, Orlando and Chicago.

New Milwaukee Bucks coach Adrian Griffin’s staff includes Sidney Dobner as the first female assistant coach in franchise history.

Dobner, who is entering her sixth season with the Bucks, is getting a promotion after working as head video coordinator this past season. Griffin also is keeping Vin Baker and Josh Oppenheimer, who had been assistants on former coach Mike Budenholzer’s staff.

Baker and Oppenheimer are entering their seventh seasons as Bucks assistants. Baker was a four-time All-Star during his playing career.

The other assistant coaches on Griffin’s staff are former Bucks head coaches Terry Stotts and Joe Prunty as well as Patrick Mutombo and DJ Bakker.

Griffin already had said after his introductory news conference that his staff would include Stotts, whose head coaching resume includes stints with Atlanta (2002-04), Milwaukee (2005-07) and Portland (2012-21).

The NBA released the full Collective Bargaining Agreement to its teams on Wednesday, two days before the start of free agency and three days before the new labor agreement between the league and its players takes effect.

The 676-page agreement — now signed by both the NBA and National Basketball Players Association — is for seven years, meaning through the 2029-30 season, though either side can opt out a year early by declaring its intention to do so by October 15, 2028.

The sides agreed in principle on the new deal in the early morning hours of April 1, when the NBA was preparing to opt out of the current CBA in a move that could have led to the league’s first major labor impasse in 12 years.

NBA owners and players then voted separately to approve the new deal in late April. It then took the sides several weeks to complete the writing of the actual agreement.