How come Piccolo was a grown ass Namekian when he fought Goku at the end

iirc on the namek saga, the non-warrior namekians were generally shorter than the warrior namekians.
idk about the elder guy, cus he was huge compared to the rest. but when the new guy became an elder, he stayed the same size.

or maybe piccolo was actually short during the 23rd budokai, but he used his growth/expansion ability to make it look like he's about the same height as goku.