The Hidden Statistics That Control The NBA - Seth Stephens-Davidowitz

What percentage of seven-footers are in the NBA?

Uh, to the best of our knowledge, it's about one in seven, which is enormous. Uh, Pablo Torres, the first guy who calculated this. I've done a similar calculation. And everyone seems to, uh, unite around this number, around one in seven, which just insane. Is there any other pursuit, glamorous pursuit, where one trait gives you a one in seven chance of reaching the absolute pinnacle of that, uh, field? I don't think so.

Think about all of the- the six and seven people that could have been on an NBA player's wage.

Yeah, they must feel terrible. (laughs)

Dude, you blew it.

I mean, I guess they can... A lot of them are probably playing abroad. Uh, you know, they're- they're probably our basketball players regardless, and make... And having fun, and, you know, make a living playing a game, but they're not getting the NBA wage for sure.

How rare is seven-foot height?

Being seven foot or above is one in 650,000 height.

(laughs) Wow, that is such a genetic lottery.

Yeah, I mean, it's... Yeah, you're basically... I, yeah, I don't think there's any other gene that gives you such a chance of being a famous multimillionaire. (laughs) Uh-

Yeah, that's a good point. What else do you learn about height?

Uh, so one of the things interesting about height is, uh... A- and basketball, is each inch roughly doubles your chances of making the NBA, like throughout the height distribution. So, if you're six foot tall, you have basically twice the chances of becoming an NBA player than if you're 5'11". If you're 6'1", twice the chances than if you're six feet, all the way out to if you're 7'2", you have twice the chance than you're 7'1", like throughout the height distribution. What that means is just there's this enormous difference in probability of reaching the NBA. We said one in seven chance if you're a seven-footer. If you're under 5'10", which is the average height of an American male, you have a one in 3.8 million chance of reaching the NBA.

(laughs)

Like, it's basically impossible. I mean, there are exceptions. Uh, you know, I talk a lot in the book about, uh, one of my favorite players, Muggsy Bogues, 5'3" and played 14 seasons in the NBA. Uh, so it's not impossible, but it's pretty close to impossible and probably not worth putting much energy even trying.

What are the disadvantages of being tall from a player perspective?

There is a... If you look at the tallest humans in history, uh, many of them are over eight feet tall, and just about all of them, it's due to a thyroid disease. Uh, you literally, there's a growth hormone that just overproduces... Uh, the growth ho- hormone is overproduced. There have been, there has been at least one NBA player who got to his height through a thyroid disease. That's George Muresan. Some people might remember him. He was- he also was an actor for a little bit. Uh, and he was... Literally, it was a disease that gave him that height. His parents were average height. And if you're, uh, that, uh, tall just from a disease, you're gonna have all kinds of problems. A lot of the tallest people in history, very few of the tallest people in history even make it past the age of 40. Uh, but I think one of the other things that's interesting is that se- uh, seven-footers or just taller NBA players, in general, are just way worse athletes any way we can measure it. They jump much less high. They're much slower. They're worse shooters. They are... Th- this kind of surprised me. I don't think anybody's shown this before. They're worse in the clutch. They can't handle pressure to the same degree shorter NBA players can. And I think the reason for this is just because the select- the advantage of being tall is so enormous-