NBA teams
Justin Verrier, ESPN Staff Writer 8y

Anthony Davis up to 250 pounds, grows one inch since last season

NBA, New Orleans Pelicans

There will be more to Anthony Davis this NBA season.

Davis, who was listed at 6-foot-10 last season and was measured as 6-10½ in shoes at the 2012 draft combine, said that he is now officially 6-foot-11.

"They measured us like a week and a half ago and they said I was 6-11, which I don't want to be," he told the Pelicans' in-house podcast, The Black And Blue Report. "I think 6-10's like the perfect height for me. It just doesn't sound right; 6-10 sounds perfect to me. 6-11, 7 feet. ... I don't like it.

"I will always tell everybody 6-10. I don't care if I'm 7-3. I'm 6-10."

The 23-year-old also said he played last season at 243 or 245 pounds but is now up to 250. He was listed at 253 pounds last season.

"I got to see how I feel playing at that weight," he said. "I really love playing at 245, but we'll see. I haven't played at 250 yet. I mean, [I've played] pickup, but that's not really a real game. I'll see. I'll test it out in preseason and see. After a while, just play.

"I don't want to get under 245 though. If I do drop weight, I don't want to get under 245."

Davis has yet to play in 70 games in each of his first four seasons but said at Friday's media day that he can withstand a full season. He said on the podcast that offseason training "strengthened his body in the right ways" in order to avoid some of the injuries that have previously kept him off the floor.

"Now if I get hit in the shoulder, y'know, it was nothing," Davis said. "It's not harmful to my body. Where, before when I would get hit, I got aches and pains, and everything like that."

The New Orleans Pelicans star underwent the first major procedure of his career, an ultrasonic debridement of his left knee, in March, but reiterated that all signs point to the issue being a "one-time thing."

"It was just the way that I've always been taught to play the game," he said. "I never had no one correct me on how I should squat or how I should jump, or anything like that. Constant pounding and constant pressure on your knees when you're squatting or jumping or running, or whatever, the wrong way is gonna stir some things up inside the knee. So it wasn't anything that was significant or out of the ordinary."

Davis averaged 24.3 points, 10.3 rebounds and two blocks with a 25.0 player efficiency rating in 61 games last season for the Pelicans, who finished 12th in the Western Conference at 30-52.

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