International Height Gap

Mark Cuban's addressing big picture issues about the globalization of basketball here, and I don't have time to decide what I think about his views, but this is an interesting observation: "If you look at NBA rosters and estimate that there will be about international 75 players that make team rosters, in glancing at that list, fewer than 10 are under 6'5."

Why would that be? Best guess is that the bulk of athletically talented people in the 6-6.5 feet range are encouraged to try to become tall soccer players rather than short basketball players. Once you get into the super-tall height ranges then even in Europe the bulk of athletically gifted people are encouraged to give hoops a try. This reminds me of something I've often been curious about. How many people in the world are over seven feet tall? And how many of those people are between the ages of, say, twenty and thirty? And out of that group of 20-30 year-old seven footers, what proportion are playing professional basketball in one league or another?

Comments

I'm just guessing, but I think it's more about the value/rarity of height, than soccer draining off the little guys. Height combined with skill is always a rarity and this has prompted people to look for it overseas. They can always find good 6'4" guysin the us, but the aircraft carriers are rare everywhere.

Posted by cw | October 11, 2006 11:36 AM

I think you've got it, Matt.

A similar but opposite thing happens with American Soccer. Most of the bigger (6'1 - 6'4) athletes end up playing football, baseball and basketball. With a few exceptions, soccer is a small man's game in the US. When we played Germany in the 2002 WC, just about every German player was 3-4" taller and 25-35 lbs heavier than his American counterpart.

Posted by Bob Ramsey | October 11, 2006 11:43 AM

Remember, too, that the growth chart for boys doesn't flatten out until the late teenage years (for example see the CDC growth chart: http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nhanes/growthcharts/set2clinical/cj41c071.pdf). In countries where soccer is more popular, boys will likely concentrate on soccer. Once they hit 16 or 17 and find they are too tall for soccer, they may switch to basketball.

Posted by Jeff R. | October 11, 2006 12:15 PM

six billion people. It's such a big denominator.

Makes me think there must be a lot of 7-footers out there, even if it's a very rare event.

On the other hand, the parts of the world I don't know much about are also parts of the world that suffer from a lot of malnutrition. And it takes a lot of calories to grow someone that tall, even if they lucked out on the genes.

I wonder where you'd look for this number, i.e. the number of 7-footers in the world. Unlikely to be collected on its own. But the numbers for all of the heights are probably pretty well collected for the US, i.e. not only averages but outliers, and maybe you could look at average heights around the world and do some extrapolation? (Shading it a bit for malnutrition again).

Posted by kid bitzer | October 11, 2006 12:22 PM

i, too, have often wondered how common really tall people are. i think this every year watching the NCAA tourney, because they are tons of kids who are over 6' 6" in this country, yet i literally can't recall the last time i saw anyone in person who was over 6' 4". which makes me wonder if all (or some ridiculously large portion of) the tall people are playing ball (or certain football positions). you have no real sense of how freakishly big 7' is until the extremely rare occasion when you see a seven footer in person.

Posted by dj superflat | October 11, 2006 12:25 PM

There have been a fair number of midsize Serbian/Croatian and Lithuanian basketball players. Those are smallish countries (total pop ~17 million, a bit more than Florida) where everyone plays basketball -- and they leave a big footprint in European and world basketball.

Posted by John Emerson | October 11, 2006 1:08 PM

Cuban has is mostly wrong. The reason why tall guy are over-represented in the foreigner population in the NBA is only because: drafting a foreigner is viewed as taking a risk. Evaluation is more difficult compared to the well known US backyard. Competition is worst in the Euro kid leagues. So you hedge your risk by drafting height. This has nothing to do with the competition for athletes by other sports, but only to do with the mind frame of the drafters. Consider that drafting a 6' guard, say Derek Fisher, in the NBA is the exception rather than the rule, and that the guy is considered short. Short and foreign: that's two 'risk' factors, and enough to nix most of these guys.

Posted by cedichou | October 11, 2006 1:16 PM

Actually, the all conversation at Cuban's blog regarding euroleague vs. NBA (which he views as protectionism vs. globalization, and falls on the side of pretectionism) and the European athletes view and the statement that hotel rooms in France don't have plumbing: there's a undercurrent of either ignorance or xenophobia which is rather unsettling. Not a surprise though the guy admitted to vote for Bush twice.

Posted by cedichou | October 11, 2006 1:19 PM

Prior to Dirk, the best Euro player to have come to the NBA was Drazen Petrovic, who was under 6'6". I think that chedichou has it mostly right - NBA teams are willing to take on more risk when drafting a big man.

Also, FYI, the reaction to Mark Cuban's blog item was addressed by the Euroleague CEO swiftly:

EuroLeague CEO Jordi Bertomeu took issue with Dallas Mavericks owner Mark Cuban on Monday, responding to Cuban's blog critique of the NBA's involvement in promoting the sport in Europe -- in which Cuban wondered aloud if the NBA was "subsidizing a world-class competitor."

Bertomeu noted that Cuban's Dallas Mavericks have prospered thanks to one of Europe's best players, Dirk Nowitzki, and emphasized that the EuroLeague's relationship with the NBA is not competitive.

I must say, I found Cuban's post more persuasive than the response.

As I posted somewhere the other day, though, I think the NBA is looking at it differently. The NBA would someday like to have its own teams in Europe. So it is viewing this as conditioning the market, not helping the Euroleague.

Posted by Al | October 11, 2006 1:28 PM

I think cw's probably right. If you're giving time to Manute, or drafting Bradley, you really value height.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | October 11, 2006 1:41 PM

I think CW has the best line on this point. Basketball is just not as popular in other parts of the world. But mobile 7 footers are so rare, that even without a lot of skill they represent real value. If you are 7 feet tall and can actually move, you don't even have to have played much basketball- after a couple of years of practice you might have a shot in the NBA. This is not true if you are under 6' 6'', so for those guys its the populations where basketball is just played a ton that really matter.

Posted by mpowell | October 11, 2006 3:18 PM

6 billion people * 50% male

3 billion males * 1/4 18-38 yrs old

750 million young males * .01% over 7 feet tall (made up, but that's 1 out of 10,000)

75,000. that's a lot more than would fill all the professional basketball leagues around.

Posted by right | October 11, 2006 3:22 PM

Right - that is assuming that .01% of males are over 7 feet tall. Given that we have no idea if that's right or not - it could be several orders of magnitude too high, for all any of us know - the calculation is completely worthless, isnt it?

Posted by John | October 11, 2006 4:45 PM

I think 1 out of 10,000 is too high a figure. That would mean that basically every mass public event you went (large rock concert, sporting event, big political rally) would have a couple of 7-footers in the crowd. When was the last time you saw a 7-footer in "civilian" life?

Posted by MQ | October 11, 2006 4:47 PM

For instance, by your assumptions, there are about 37,500 American men between the ages of 18 and 38 who are over 7 feet tall (and presumably it would have to be more, since Americans are likely taller than, say, Chinese and Indians).

Does that really sound plausible? As far as I'm aware, there are very few people who are over 7 feet tall who play college basketball in the United States. By this standard, there should be about 7500 young men of college age in the United States who are over 7 feet tall. But yet, how many people over 7 feet tall are playing college ball in the US? I'd say probably no more than a few dozen or so. Is it really plausible that only a minuscule percentage of college age young men of over 7 feet tall are playing college basketball?

I'd guess that the frequency of over 7 footers, even in the United States, is considerably less than 1 in 10,000, and that it's even less for the world as a whole.

Posted by John | October 11, 2006 4:52 PM

The first wave of international players (Sabonis, Olajuwon, Bol, Schrempf) was way skewed toward big men. Petrovic and Sarunas Marciolionis were the only real exceptions I can name. And it's still skewed.

Height is a rare commodity, and undeniably valuable in hoops. If a young man is 7'0" and reasonably agile, he will get many more than "his share" of opportunities to make it.

Think about NBA players from recent years who were UNDER six feet: Speedy Claxton, Earl Boykins, etc. Can you name any that weren't African-American? Nobody's going to give a guy 5'5" any slack. So short players make the league, undeniably on merit, and almost always from the dominant basketball demographic.

Posted by Dix Hill | October 11, 2006 5:12 PM

Some very quick googling yields a UK mean male height of 5'9.5" with a 2.8" standard deviation. Somewhat generously using these figures for the global male population, 1 in 10,000 is orders of magniatue off the mark. A seven footer is more than 5 standard deviations from the norm. That's one in a million territory.

Posted by aretino | October 11, 2006 5:23 PM

that was my point earlier -- you never see anyone on the streets above 6'5" or so, let alone someone who's 7' (i've only once seen someone who's 7' on the street, and that was patrick ewing wandering around gtown in college). tall people are extraordinarily rare even in developed countries with enough food to ensure most people who might get to 7' do so. it's why people like chris dudley could hang around in the nba for so long.

Posted by dj superflat | October 11, 2006 5:34 PM

I wrote about the global distribution of height from an NBA perspective for UPI here:

http://www.isteve.com/2003_NBA_Height_Spreading_Globally.htm

When I was at UCLA, with 35,000 students, there were two seven footers on campus -- Mark Eaton and Stuart Gray. They both played in the NBA. Seven footers are rare.

Colby Cosh asked who were the tallest famous men who weren't famous for being tall. His readers came up with John Kenneth Galbraith, Michael Crichton, Jim Pinkerton, and Geoffrey Reggio, all under 7 feet.

Posted by Steve Sailer | October 11, 2006 5:36 PM

Actually, five standard deviations is worse than I thought. It's more like 2 in 10 million territory. So at most 150 basketball age 7 footers in the world.

This also strikes me as evidence of pervasive height exaggeration in NBA roster lists.

Posted by aretino | October 11, 2006 6:03 PM

Yet another believer in the 3" Conspiracy.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | October 11, 2006 6:57 PM

2 words: "Water polo"

Posted by Andy | October 11, 2006 8:02 PM

I can only think of one famous baseball player I've run into by accident in my life, Steve Garvey, but I've npticed on the street Wilt Chamberlain, Patrick Ewing, Bill Walton, Dennis Rodman, and Horace Grant. Why? Because basketball players are so much more noticeable than baseball players when in street clothes. (Granted, Rodman was riding a Harley and dressed in leather and tatoos, so he still would have been noticeable if he was 5-8.)

Posted by Steve Sailer | October 11, 2006 9:16 PM

I don't think I've ever met anyone taller than about 6'8" in person. The upper bound for women is about 6'2"; I'm 6'1", and I think I've met two women in my life who were definitely taller than I was.

Posted by Norsecats | October 11, 2006 11:29 PM

There's also the question of how the game is played in other countries. From an article about Yao Ming in the current NYRB link (subscription):

One major distinction between Chinese and American basketball cultures is China's "fifty-year obsession," in Larmer's words, "with cultivating big men." A small but notable number of Chinese players have made it into the NBA, but never as point guards, a position traditionally held by "small" men, six feet tall or slightly shorter, who are valued for their spontaneity and their ability to think for themselves. These qualities are discouraged and suppressed in Chinese athletes, although they are increasingly prized in commerce, science, and some of the arts. In China "small" men are coached to bring the ball forward so that taller players can shoot. As Peter Hessler, a Beijing-based American journalist who has also written about Yao Ming, notes, "It's significant that China has yet to produce a great male guard—the position requires skill and intensity rather than height."

Because they have watched American basketball on television, Chinese young people have started to admire small players. Some now find Yao Ming "too tall, too square, too establishment." Not far from Tiananmen, Larmer has seen courts crowded with youngsters practicing NBA-style moves, "a sharp, almost subversive contrast with the robotic players going through the motions at the sports schools." China's basketball establishment fears the "individualistic, hip-hop culture" of the NBA, but Chinese fans love it. The Shanghai Sharks, for whom Yao used to play, can barely attract crowds anymore; people would rather stay home and watch NBA games.

Posted by eb | October 12, 2006 12:43 AM

Well, hey, that "individualistic, hip-hop culture of the NBA" sure has made American teams dominant in world basketball over the last few years, so maybe the ChiCom basketball commissars know what they're doing...

Posted by Steve Sailer | October 12, 2006 1:48 AM

Elsewhere, I thought I read that McGrady, in particular, was a Chinese favorite.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | October 12, 2006 1:50 AM

In Europe we also play handball (for the uninformed that is like soccer with hands, 7 players on each team on a 40*20 m indoor area). The ideal height for a player in handball in 1.85 - 2.00 meters. Handball is big in former Yugoslavia, Spain, France and Germany especially. That would probably account for som of the "missing" athletes.

Posted by Kjevis | October 12, 2006 3:34 AM

Surely the way to test this idea is to look at the height of basketball players in Europe, not European players in the NBA. If the height distribution of basketball players is skewed higher in Europe than in the US, controlled for variation in overall population height, then Matt's probably right.

Posted by Ginger Yellow | October 12, 2006 8:43 AM

Here's a site that sets forth the expected population statistics for various heights.

http://investing.calsci.com/statistics.html

According to this site, about 130,000 Americans with a height of 6'6" or taller, 3200 6'9" or taller and only 28 7'1" or greater. A CDC study from 2000 indicated that about 3% of 20 year old males were taller than 6'3". Given the bell curve distribution of heights, the likely trade-offs between athleticism/skills and height become much greater with each couple of inches of height at the extreme ends.

Posted by Ben Brackley | October 12, 2006 11:19 AM

To finish my thought:

Given the bell curve distribution of heights, the likely trade-offs between athleticism/skills and height become much greater with each couple of inches of height at the extreme ends.

Therefore, NBA GMs have a much greater interest in expanding the pool of taller players to fine those vey rare tall persons who have the athleticism and skills (as well as height) to compete in the NBA. The pool of players under 6'5" in the US is large enough that it is far easier to find players with the requisite skills and athleticism. Sure, they may be plenty of European guards who could play in the NBA, but there is far less need for them.

Posted by Ben Brackley | October 12, 2006 11:28 AM

"that was my point earlier -- you never see anyone on the streets above 6'5" or so, let alone someone who's 7' "

I think you need to get around more. I'm 6'5", and 2 other guys in my row of cubicles are taller than me. The guy who runs our mass spectrometer is 6'8". At least another 3 guys I don't know very well at my place of employment are taller than I am, out of a workforce of 2500, mostly male, employees.

Still, 7' is incredibly rare. I've only seen one 7 footer in person outside of basketball related activities. He was a security guard at a mall.

Posted by Njorl | October 12, 2006 1:26 PM

"The pool of players under 6'5" in the US is large enough that it is far easier to find players with the requisite skills and athleticism. Sure, they may be plenty of European guards who could play in the NBA, but there is far less need for them."

That's what I said at the begining, but not so well. The guy who talked about risk also had a good point. It's a real common saying in the draft or recruiting: when in doubt, go with height. They also say, you can't teach height, which is a way of saying that you don't have to be so skilled (or athletic). The positions that required the most skill and atheleticism are the 1, 2, and 3. The hieghts of these postions are traditionally 5'10" to 6'7." Lots more guys in that range, so lots more competition. So to be a 1, 2, or 3 requires more skill and there's more competition. And with a few bright exceptions (the world is catching up), these positions are mostly played by americans in the NBA.

But I don't think the current situation will last for long. The money available in professional sports creates what is essentially a breeding system, breeding continually improved specimens. And now the NBA is extending it's system to the rest of the world and people a out there are going to be developed. It's going to be a world wide game (for tall people) and it's going to be good becasue the style of play is going to change (it already has, look at the Suns) in interesting new ways. We are on the cusp of a basketball revoloution.

Posted by cw | October 12, 2006 1:27 PM

Many prospects who come from Europe these days -- and there are a few -- actually go through the US college system rather than being drafted directly from abroad. I'd be interested to know if the same 'short and foreign' gutcheck applies to the coaches of NCAA programs when offering scholarships...

Posted by pseudonymous in nc | October 13, 2006 12:07 AM