The 20 Lightest NBA Players by Weight (Since 1990)

I was curious – who was the lightest player in NBA history? Without doing too much sleuth work, I was able to quickly determine within a few clicks that Spud Webb, weighing in at just 133lbs, has the the honor the NBA”s lightest player in the history of the league.

Ok, not much of a surprise, so who else is on that list of lightest players in the NBA ? Where did Nate Robinson and Muggsy Bogues sit? What about the 5-10 Avery Johnson and 6-0 Allen Iverson? How did a taller, skinnier player like Reggie Miller compare?

As I researched, I found that the “lightest” list was full of players from the 1940s and 1950s – an era when the NBA was just a smaller league. So, in order to make a list that was somewhat recognizable, I limited it to players that played at least one season in the 1990s and later.

It’s no surprise the trend has been that NBA players have been getting bigger and stronger. Today a player is more likely to be build like a Nate Robinson (180 lbs) than Spud Webb (133 lbs).

There is only one active player on the list (Aaron Brooks) of the 20 lightest players since 1990. Here’s that list:

Rank	Player	Height	Weight	Density*
1	Spud Webb	5-7	133lbs	1.99
2	Earl Boykins	5-5	135lbs	2.08
3	Muggsy Bogues	5-3	136lbs	2.16
4	Greg Grant	5-7	140lbs	2.09
5	Elliot Perry	6-0	150lbs	2.08
6	Tyus Edney	5-10	152lbs	2.17
7	Stan Kimbrough	5-11	153lbs	2.15
8	Chris Garner	5-10	156lbs	2.23
9	Dee Brown	6-1	160lbs	2.19
10	Charles Smith	6-1	160lbs	2.19
11	Chucky Atkins	5-11	160lbs	2.25
12	Andre Turner	5-11	160lbs	2.25
13	Donald Whiteside	5-10	160lbs	2.29
14	Keith Jennings	5-7	160lbs	2.39
15	Aaron Brooks	6-0	161lbs	2.24
16	Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf	6-1	162lbs	2.22
17	Michael Adams	5-10	162lbs	2.31
19	Dana Barros	5-11	163lbs	2.30
20	Juan Dixon	6-3	164lbs	2.19

It’s interesting that the top 20 topped out at 164lbs because there were a slew of players that weighed in at 165lbs – Allen Iverson, Bobby Hurley, TJ Ford, Dejuan Wheat, Demetrius Calip, and Johnny Dawkins – just to name a few of them.

After spending a couple hours creating this list – the list brought me to my next question – who was the lightest player, pound for pound, on this list? Who was the least dense of the lightest players?

That award also went to Spud Webb who averaged 1.99 pounds for every inch. Spud is the only player in NBA history below the 2lb per inch threshold. The heaviest of the lightest? The 5-7 Keith Jennings was the densest player on the list with 2.39 pounds per pound.

Thanks to Basketball Reference, Find The Data, and Fantasy Basketball Money Leagues for providing the data, informations, and support in creating this this post.

* We determined the player’s density by simply dividing the players weight (in pounds) and divided that by the players height (in inches).