When the Portland Trail Blazers lost the other night by 42 to the Utah Jazz - one of the worst teams in the league - there was very little to feel good about besides the alley oop Sheadon Sharpe threw down halfway through the second quarter:
His vertical reached 45.1 inches on the play, the highest-recorded vertical since the NBA began tracking last year. But just how high is that in the grand scheme of things? We hit the Encyclopædia Britannica to find out:
Elephant: 0’0” - While elephants are good at a great many things - including being enormous - one thing they cannot do is jump. According to the Smithsonian Magazine, the skeletal design of an elephant with all the bones in their legs pointed down doesn’t provide an effective “spring” against which to get vertical pop. All of those cartoons we’ve been force-fed of a mouse scaring an elephant so it jumps onto chair have been lies. Speaking of mice...
Mouse: 1’1” - The elephant can’t jump away from a mouse, but a mouse can jump away from an elephant! The Illinois Department of Public Health wants you to know that not only to mice have a “keen senses of taste, hearing, smell and touch,” they can also jump 13 inches onto a flat surface. Not bad for a critter just a few inches tall!
Average Trained Human: 2’0” to 2’4” - Do yourself a favor: go to a part of your home that has some space against a wall. Hold your hand up and mark the highest you can reach. Now jump as high as you can and touch the wall again and try to mark that spot. Congratulations! You’ve (roughly) recorded your vertical leap. If you’re reasonably trained, women can expect to hit around 2 feet and men a little more than that... but you’re gonna have to put in some more time with your Jumpsoles if you want to make the NBA.
Anfernee Simons: 3’5.5” - Simons recorded a 41.5-inch max vertical at the 2018 NBA Draft Combine, but he could probably jump higher on a good day. While he may not be known for his aerial acrobatics as much as of late, we have to put some respect on the name of the 2021 NBA Dunk Champion:
Elite NBA Athlete: 3’6” - According to the NBA, four players shared a 42-inch vertical at the 2024-25 NBA Draft Combine. Given how many rookies in this year’s class have a standing reach of 8-and-a-half feet or more, this gives them plenty of wiggle room for dunks, oops, and shot-blocking. This is especially true Portland’s own Donovan Clingan, whose 9’7” standing reach was tied for tops with Zach Edey).
Shaedon Sharpe: 3’9.1” - Arriving at Sharpe’s recent flush, it has the highest bounce of any dunk recorded by the NBA this year with a “Jump Score” of 97.5, clearing the next-best dunk (Anthony Edwards at 92.6) by a wide margin. Related: did you know the NBA has created a metric to rate in-game dunks by a number of factors, including vertical, power, and style? It’s true! And while the NBA doesn’t share vertical lift data directly, it is being recorded, and the NBA confirmed Sharpe’s dunk has the highest vertical since they started tracking last year. However impressive Shaedon’s hops are, he’s far from the world’s greatest leaper.
NBA Record: 4’0” - Blazers legend and current Brooklyn Nets guard Keon Johnson recorded the highest max vertical in NBA Combine history with his 48-inch leap in 2021. If jumping really high were the only thing required from an NBA rotation player, Johnson would have a long career ahead of him.
Human Record: 4’2” - The Guinness Book of World Records pins the highest-ever human vertical recorded at 50 inches back in 2022. That doesn’t seem to put Sharpe or other NBA athletes prohibitively far behind, but given how well athletes are already trained and how close to their physical potential they’ve reached, we shouldn’t expect an in-game vertical to reach 50 inches any time soon.
Cat: 8’0” - I was going to say don’t ask me why baking soda company Arm & Hammer has an article about cats... but they sell cat litter and related products, so it makes sense. Your little guy can jump over a baby gate, onto the counter, and most of the way up your Christmas tree if he wanted to, and that’s without a running start! We should be thankful their murder mittens are small enough to cut into our arms ONLY enough to draw blood and not to tear flesh from bone.
Atlantic Salmon: 12’0” - Putting Shaedon Sharpe to shame is the Atlantic Salmon that can leap an incredible 12 feet out of the water and over obstacles to reach spawning grounds. Does shooting out of the water seem in some ways less impressive than jumping off the ground? Maybe so, but a well-trained salmon would still smoke Sharpe in the dunk contest if it were held in the Willamette River just outside the Moda Center. Also, get it? Salmon? Smoke?... please clap.
Himalayan Balsam: 15’0” - The animal kingdom can’t have all the fun, as the mighty Himalayan Balsam - a flower that that holds over a dozen seeds in each of its pods - can eject those seeds up to five meters away if you brush against them. Imagine accidentally bumping into a person and having them pop over a one-story house! They may be considered an invasive species in the US, but their feats of aerial splendor are still worthy of mention.
Mountain Lion: 18’0” - Remember what we said about cats not tearing your arm off? Well imagine a housecat, just scaled up from 12lbs to 200 and you get a mountain lion. These things can jump across a 40-foot river or over an 18-foot tall fence, so if you think you’re outrunning, outclimbing, or in any way getting away from one if you really have to, you’re sadly mistaken. While the pain would be excruciating, I guess there are worse ways to go than being a play toy for an enormous snuggly kitty.
World Mammal Record: 23’0” - Guess what holds the world record for highest vertical by a mammal?... yep, a mountain lion! Just in case the last entry wasn’t enough, you now have to imagine that same oversize cat jumping onto the roof of - or possibly over - a two-story house. The lesson here: if you need to get away from one of these things, you’d best be in a car.