Travis Kelce's NBA Look-Alike Celebrates Chiefs' Super Bowl Win

While Travis Kelce celebrated the Kansas City Chiefs' 25-22 overtime victory over the San Francisco 49ers in Sunday's Super Bowl, a pro basketball player who looks remarkably like him celebrated (somewhat facetiously) nearly 1,500 miles away.

New Orleans Pelicans center Jonas Valanciunas bears a striking resemblance to Kelce, which some have pointed out over the years. The Pelicans spent Super Bowl Sunday in Memphis, Tennessee, preparing for their road game Monday against the Grizzlies, and Valanciunas was watching the game with teammates at a bar.

"Travis, we won! We won!" one of Valanciunas' teammates yelled in a video posted by Pelicans forward Trey Murphy. "Yes!"

Valanciunas stood with a smirk and raised his arms in celebration.

While the video didn't make the height disparity clear, Valanciunas standing up would have put him several inches above Kelce. At 6-foot-5, Kelce has great height for an NFL tight end but is slightly below average for an NBA player. Valanciunas, meanwhile, is a 6-foot-11, 265-pound center.

Kelce himself has noted the resemblance. When, in 2017, a fan pointed out on X (Twitter at the time) that Kelce would look a lot like Valanciunas if he shaved his head, Kelce quoted the tweet.

"It's kinda scary," he wrote, "but if I was 7ft life wouldn't be fair for guys in the NBA... (says everyone under 7ft ever)."

Another fan posted a side-by-side photo of Kelce and Valanciunas doing postgame interviews. Kelce was wearing a hat in the photo, obscuring the hair that differentiated him from Valanciunas at the time.

"I just got extremely uncomfortable...," Kelce responded.

Six years later, Kelce has a fade buzz cut (which, to be clear, he did not invent), and the similarity is cemented.

Valanciunas is having a good season with the Pelicans, averaging 13.9 points, 9.5 rebounds, 2.3 assists and 1.0 blocks per game. The Pelicans outscore opponents by 4.1 points per 100 possessions when he is on the floor.

The Pelicans, led by Zion Williamson and Brandon Ingram, are 31-22 as a team and are sixth in a very competitive Western Conference playoff race. They have the NBA's eighth-best net rating (points scored per 100 possessions minus points allowed per 100 possessions), at 4.3.

Valanciunas and the Pelicans, of course, have a little distance to make up between themselves and Valanciunas' doppelgänger and the Chiefs. Kelce's team claimed its second consecutive Super Bowl on Sunday and its third in the past five years.

Kelce's brother, Jason (who may look less like Travis than Valanciunas does) was present at the Super Bowl, and the Eagles center celebrated wildly in the aftermath (a wrestling mask appears to have been involved).

For one night, however, Valanciunas could celebrate a championship, even if it was just a joke.