Heightened Expectations

     Congrats to the '11 Mavs for beating the dynamically unlovable Heat in 6 games.  I went to a bar with a few friends to watch and an argument about J.J Barea's height got about as much attention as LeBron's fourth quarter numbers this series.  The J.J dispute is not in the scope of this blog but a point that did get me thinking was the fact that he's listed at six feet tall all over the internet, and most importantly, on NBA.com.  I'm aware of the dramatic effect relativity can have on a fella, but J.J is about as six feet as Jason Terry's bicep tattoo is tactful.  Why the discrepancy on such an easily observable measurement?  We're talking the objective of the objective here. How does variation find its way into an utterly verifiable number?
     I read that athletes in the U.S are often measured with their shoes on. This leads to "shorter" European players standing above similarly listed U.S athletes and no, not just because no one gets the metric system over here.  The whole non standardized-ness of it all begs a question.  If we can dig up every detail about their past, speculate about their future, and bug them with pointless questions in the present, why can't we just know athletes heights?  The only economic metaphor I could draw would be a firm "cooking" their books to look better than they are or a credit rating agency inflating their ratings.  The difference is, when it comes to salary valuations of players who are already in the NBA, sport-metricicians are picking up PPG APG STL and RBD before HT and WT who don't even make tryouts.  If the owners don't inherently care about the heights of their players, the league doesn't benefit from shady statistics, and the fans would most likely just prefer the truth, maybe it's the players that turned the rule of the ruler into a democracy where everyone gets to pick their own height?  Eh, I doubt it; If I was J.J Barea I'd be proud as hell for every inch under six feet I was.  Congrats Barea, Nowitzki, Kidd, Cuban and the rest of the Dallas Squad.