When I first started out the website I did a rather long review looking at the height between the NBA start player Lebron James and Kevin Durant just for fun. That post has been one of the most viewed and shared posts “Kevin Durant Height Vs. Lebron James Height”

I also did a review on the height comparison between Mitt Romney and President Barack Obama when the presidential election was going on last year in 2012 to see how they compared to each other in the post “Height Of Mitt Romney And Barack Obama Compared, Who Is Taller?“. I already also talked about Obama’s height.

What I wanted to do in this post is to get as accurate a measurement of Lebron James’ height as possible, using our current president’s height as a standard to based on.

So let’s set the standard, which is to show that Obama is indeed 6′ 1′ as he claims.

The thing I would say is that as the one of the most powerful men in the free world, Obama himself would probably not feel any insecurity over his height so his claim that he is 6′ 1″ is not exxagerated. Many men do exaggerate their height for ego reasons to make themselves feel bigger and better but let’s assume that Obama, who has the power to launch thousands of nukes with an order does not have any type of height/short stature/napoleon complex. His public demeanor in being so calm in debate and discourse suggest that he has a high level of emotional and social intelligence and is self-aware, self-confidence, and has a socially acceptable level of self-esteem. His insecurities, either in his professional or persona life, would most likely be lower than most men.

When we look at pictures of Obama next to the former England PM Gordon Brown  who has been listed at 5′ 11′, it does look like current President Obama is indeed around 6′ 1″ as listed.

Analysts who are more careful would say that Obama’s height is actually around 1.86 meters tall, not 1.85 meters tall.

6′ 1″ is 73 inches which when multiplied by 2.54 , which is the conversion factor to go from inches to centimeters, gives 185.42 cms for the actual height measured in the International Metric Units.

1 cm of extra height is extremely hard to determine.

Side Note: Here is a picture I found of Obama next to the leaders of other countries in probably the G-8 Summit. I don’t know which year it is. Click on the picture for a bigger view. It is interesting just how much bigger Obama is compared to say Merkel or then president of France Sarkozy.

The website for the White House (.gov) officially lists President Obama at 6′ 1″. If I was to guess, Obama is probably exactly 6′ 1″. He might have been slightly taller when he was in his 20s but since he is now around his early 50s (currently 51) he probably did shrink a little. Maybe he was even 6′ 2″ in his earlier days, being a skinny guy back when he was in Columbia or Harvard Law, but that was almost 30 years ago.

Now let’s see just how tall Lebron James really is compared to Obama.

I would find a Youtube video entitled “President Obama Welcomes NBA Champion Miami Heat” where he was presenting the 2012 NBA Champions Miami Heat. He did most of the talking until the end. Lebron would get beside President Obama to give a thank you speech and they are standing right next to each other. I would clip a picture from the time frame 7:58 and 8:00 to show just what I really think Lebron Jame’s height really is.

In this first picture, we can see that Lebron is at least half a head taller than President Obama.

The average male head is around 10 inches tall based on the Wikipedia article on Body Proportions. The thing is that for the average human, the entire body height is 7 and half as long as the head length, which I would assume is from the top tip of the skull to the bottom of the tip of the chin.

Assuming that the average male human has a head around 10 inches, 10*7.5 = 75 inches, which is 6′ 3″. Since Lebron James is supposed around 6′ 7 – 6′ 8″ then his head, based on average head to body height size is probably around 10 inches long.

If we remember from basic drawing class, the position where we are supposed to put the middle level of the eyes, or eye level should be almost exactly in the middle of the head.

This means that the length of “half a head” or to the “eye level” would be usually 4-5 inches. So the length from the eye level to the top of the head/skull is 5 inches, especially for bigger than average men like Lebron James and other NBA players, who are in the long tail of the height & body size distribution curve for human beings.

So I would conclude at this point that the length from Lebron Jame’s eye level to the top of his head is 5 inches tall, or at least 4.5 tall.

For Lebron to be really the 6′ 8″ he is listed as, the length between his eye level and the top of Barack Obama’s top of head should be then between 2″ – 2.5″.

From just eyeballing the picture, I would say that Lebron Jame’s bottom nose level is exactly at the same height location as the top of Obama’s head.

So what is the distance between the eye level and the bottom of the nose level. Assuming that the proportions from out introductory life-like drawing classes were right, then half of length of the eye level to the top of the head, which is 5″ is the length, which is 2.5″

So this means that the height from the bottom of Lebron Jame’s nose to the top of his head is 5″ + 2.5″ = 7. 5″

This adds all up to the real height of Lebron James being 6′ 8.5″, which seems to be slightly more than would be expected of Lebron, since we noted that his predraft measurements back in 2003 was 6′ 7.25″ without shoes.

If we look at the size of Lebron’s head, we could say that maybe his head vertical length is not as long as what his body length indicates. What if his head is only 9 ” instead of 10″? Then his eye level is 4.5 inches from the top of his head, the bottom of his nose is 2.25 inches from the middle of his eye level, and he is 6.75 inches taller than President Obama, which would make him 6′ 7.75″

In addition, both men are not looking straight ahead, with their back against the wall for a clear height measurement or comparison. Obama is showing to have very good posture, while Lebron is  twisting his torso to crane his neck.

Should we also be taking into account how height decreases over time throughout a person’s day due to spinal disk compression? We should, but both men would be experiencing the same thing. Since Lebron has a bigger body, on average the amount of decreased height would be more in his body than Obama’s.

When I try to integrate all of these factors together, I would have to give Lebron Jame’s Height a boost up to maybe 6′ 7.75″ because of the comparison to the current President Obama. His nose is around the same level and height as the top of Obama’s head.

Things To Neglect

For this type of formal event, all people there would be wearing formal shoes, which gives around 1.5-2 inches of extra height. We assume that the same type of footwear is born by both men being analyzed, which would boost them both up by the same height.

We take into consideration any type of slouching that either men would be doing. Obama in general has very good posture, always standing erect except maybe when he has to stoop to talk eye level to eye level with foreign diplomats and leaders who might be shorter.

Lebron, due to his stockiness compared to most NBA players, does have a slight slouch but he usually had very good posture when he dresses and presents himself in formal clothing.