NBA basketball: Is height more important than skill?
More or Less: Behind the Stats
BBC
4.6 • 3.5K Ratings
🗓️ 24 February 2024
⏱️ 10 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
In the NBA, the US professional basketball league, the average player is a shade over 6ft 6 inches tall. So just how much does being very tall increase a man’s chances of becoming a professional player?
Tim Harford talks to data scientist Seth Stephens-Davidowitz, author of Who Makes the NBA?: Data-Driven Answers to Basketball’s Biggest Questions.
Presenter: Tim Harford Producer: Debbie Richford Production Co-ordinator: Katie Morrison Series Producer: Tom Colls Sound Mix: David Crackles Editor: Richard Vadon
(Image: Charlotte Hornets v New York Knicks. Credit: Focus on Sport/Getty Images)
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're about to listen to a BBC podcast and trust me you'll get there in a moment but if you're a comedy fan |
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| 0:40.3 | Hello and thank you for downloading the more or less podcast. We are your weekly guide to the numbers in the news and in life and I'm Tim Harford. |
| 0:48.0 | This week we're hoping to slam dunk a few basketball statistics, specifically numbers relating to the NBA, the Men's Professional Basketball League in North America. |
| 1:02.0 | Even if you've never seen an NBA game, you may... professional basketball league in North America. |
| 1:02.8 | Even if you've never seen an NBA game, |
| 1:04.7 | you may have noticed that, well, those chaps are very, very tall. |
| 1:09.4 | The average NBA player stands a shade over 6 foot 6 inches tall, but just how does the height of a man |
| 1:16.8 | affect his chances of reaching the height of the sport and playing for the NBA? |
| 1:22.4 | Seth Stephen Davidovitz is the author of |
| 1:25.0 | Who Makes the NBA, |
| 1:27.0 | data-driven answers to basketball's biggest questions. |
| 1:30.0 | Seth looked at the heights of American men and the heights of NBA players. |
| 1:35.0 | So it turns out each inch roughly doubles your chances of becoming an NBA player |
| 1:41.0 | throughout the height distribution. So if you're six feet tall you have twice the |
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