NBA demanding honest heights and weights on players this year

The NBA league office is insisting on the correct heights and weights for players this season and not the made-up ones teams have been submitting for about 75 years.

That's the latest from New York Times insider Marc Stein, who reported, "Notified this week that they must certify and submit the precise height and age for every player within the first week of training camp."

For instance, no longer can Cavaliers center Tristan Thompson be listed as 6-foot-10 if he's not. (He's probably not even 6-9.)

Teams won't even be allowed to measure players while the players are in shoes, Stein reported. Which is interesting, considering no one in the NBA plays basketball in their bare feet or just socks.

The NBA and basketball teams have been listing players' height and weight wrong for years, usually for reasons of both marketing and intimidation.

Marketing because some players don't like the fact they are 7-footers. It really can bother them.

Intimidation because 6-1 just sounds scarier to opponents than, say, 5-11.

Basically, the reasons are many why teams and players have been untruthful about size, weight and shoe size. But that all comes to an end next week, when teams submit their final rosters for camp.

This time, the numbers cannot lie.