At the 2012 NBA Draft Combine in Chicago, it's measurement day. Prospects have weighed in and measured up, and everyone knows that every inch matters. Meyers Leonard and Tyler Zeller are in a competition to win the heart of lottery teams in the 2012 NBA Draft, so every extra layer of analysis could make the difference.
Chad Ford of ESPN is reporting measurements for various players via Twitter on Friday, and he dropped some interesting nuggets on Zeller and Leonard. Here are the exact measurements for both players, via Ford:
Tyler Zeller 6' 11.25" socks 7' 0.5" shoes and 7' 0" wing 8' 8" reach
— Chad Ford (@chadfordinsider) June 8, 2012
Meyers Leonard 6' 11.75" socks 7' 1.25" shoes and 7' 3" wing 9' 0.5" reach
— Chad Ford (@chadfordinsider) June 8, 2012
As you can see, Leonard is taller, has a longer wingspan and a taller standing reach than Zeller. It's all good news for the Illini big man, considering he is two years younger than Zeller as well. But is it really all that bad for Zeller? Draft Express has compiled average height, wingspan and standing reach by position for multiple NBA drafts, and both players rate out fairly well against the positional average at center. One area where the UNC prospect might have a problem is his standing reach, which is quite a bit shorter than the average center over the past several years. Take a look at the chart for the sake of comparison (via Draft Express):
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