NBA prospects are scrutinized in every aspect of their body and their game. No matter how much film a team has on a player, the prospects still will go through workouts and measurements when it comes time to get drafted.
Whenever a player goes through the NBA Combine, information comes out that can affect his draft stock. Case in point, Rutgers freshman guard Ace Bailey, who has been mocked as high as the No. 2 pick behind presumptive No. 1 Cooper Flagg. Bailey has seen his draft stock drop slightly because of how he has been going through the pre-draft process.
His red flags have been mounting. Teams have been questioning his attitude and have been perplexed by his decision to cancel private workouts. Bailey had even more controversy arise from his measurements at the NBA Combine. When his height was measured, he came in well short of his listed height when he played at Rutgers
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Here is more on Bailey's height and the controversy surrounding it.
How tall is Ace Bailey?
Bailey was measured at the 2025 pre-draft NBA Combine. Barefoot, he stood 6-7.5 inches with a 7-0.5 inch wingspan.
Rutgers’ Ace Bailey’s official measurements from the NBA Draft Combine:
6’7 1/2 barefoot, 202.8 lbs with a 7’0 ½" wingspan and 8’11" standing reach pic.twitter.com/FzkhKA2cM1
— Jonathan Givony (@DraftExpress) May 12, 2025
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Ace Bailey height controversy
When playing for the Scarlet Knights, Bailey was listed at 6-10. Schools are known to embellish the numbers a little bit to make their players seem more imposing. Coming out of high school, he was listed at 6-8 by 247Sports.
The expectation was that Bailey would fall somewhere between 6-8 and 6-9 when measured standing barefoot at the NBA Combine. Instead, he was measured at 6-7.5, 2.5 inches shorter than he was listed at Rutgers. This number turned heads, with many adding this to the laundry list of knocks that were coming out about Bailey as a prospect.
The discrepancy has a simple solution, per Sports Illustrated's Andy Quach. He said that previously, athletes at the combine were measured with their shoes on. These shoes typically added two inches to the player's height. For Bailey, that would take his barefoot 6-7.5 up to 6-9.5, which is pretty close to the 6-10 he was billed at by the Scarlet Knights.
Per Quach, "The amount of backlash that came when his height was announced would suggest that he clocked in at 6-5 or under. He might not be an official 6-10, but he measured just a quarter-inch shorter than Cooper Flagg, and nary a soul has had a problem with Flagg being dubbed as 6-10.
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Michael Beasley height controversy
One of the most talked-about height controversies in the NBA came with Michael Beasley. When he was at Kansas State, he was listed at 6-10, similar to Bailey. Critics, when he was going through the pre-draft process in 2008, accused him of being 6-7. Instead, he landed in the middle at 6-8.25 inches tall, but that was with basketball shoes on. Without, he would've actually been about 6-6.25 inches tall.
Beasley noticed all of the chatter at the time about his height and said, "I didn't know there was a height requirement for the NBA." He ended up being drafted with the second overall pick in the 2008 NBA Draft by the Heat. Beasley hung around the NBA until the 2018-2019 season when he finished his career in the United States with the Lakers. He played internationally for three years after that.