NBA Average Player Heights...Don't Add Up

Post #1 » by **TrueLAfan** » Sun Apr 11, 2010 3:26 pm

Just thought I'd bring something up...am I the only one that's aware that the "official" average player heights listed by the NBA don't jibe with reality?

I've been working on getting the average listed heights for players by year. What I've done is to go the the Player Season finder at b-r.com and enter in a single season, and have the players listed by height. Then, it's simple--find the total amount of player heights, and divide by total number of players.

I was doing this to see if there was, in fact, a smooth growth in player heights between around 1975 and 1986...the period when, IMO, players measurements in shoes (which began somewhere in mid-decade) should cause an even, step-by-step rise. The rise is there. But it stopped about between a quarter and a half an inch short of the 1986 player average height--which, according to the NBA

http://www.nba.com/news/survey_2007.html

is 6'7.36". But when I added up the player heights for 1986, I found that average listed heights of players who played at least one minute in the 1986 seasons was 6'7.08". In 1987, according to the NBA, average player height topped out at a league record 6'7.62". Except...

1 player -- 7'6"
1 player -- 7'5"
2 players -- 7'4"
1 player -- 7'3"
3 players -- 7'2"
7 players -- 7'1"
20 players -- 7'
25 players -- 6'11"
27 players -- 6'10"
35 players -- 6'9"
28 players -- 6'8"
43 players -- 6'7"
31 players -- 6'6"
26 players -- 6'5"
17 players -- 6'4"
29 players -- 6'3"
19 players -- 6'2"
13 players -- 6'1"
4 players -- 6'0"
1 player -- 5'11"
1 player -- 5'10"
1 player -- 5'6"

335 Players

http://www.basketball-reference.com/pla ... _by=height

Unless my math (and my spreadsheet) is totally wrong, that's a total of 26473 inches for those 335 players. That's an average height of 79.02 inches...six tenths of an inch less than the height listed by the NBA. Just so we're clear about how massive a discrepancy that is...in case you're thinking that, maybe, basketball-reference.com has mislisted a few player heights...about a quarter of the league would have to be off by an inch. And another quarter of the league would have to be off by two inches.

I'm going through remaining years now, and so far I'm still seeing discrepancies...usually around a quarter of an inch. I'm just wondering if anyone else has seen/heard/noticed this.

jicama · Post #2 » by **jicama** » Sun Apr 11, 2010 10:02 pm

Are the average heights at nba.com weighted by minutes played?
If you want to know the average height of players on the court at a given moment, that's what you'd have to do. A 5'6" guy who played 100 minutes does not impact the average NBA height the way a 7' guy who plays 3000 minutes does.

mysticbb · Post #3 » by **mysticbb** » Sun Apr 11, 2010 11:25 pm

I weighted the height by minutes played for the 2009/10 season. The difference between unweighted and weighted: 0.02 inch. Yes, there is a difference, but not 0.5 inch. ;)

joyner82 · Post #4 » by **joyner82** » Sun Apr 11, 2010 11:38 pm

well Durant is listed at 6'9 but he's really closer to 6'11 or 7'

Post #5 » by **TrueLAfan** » Sun Apr 11, 2010 11:46 pm

...but that's not how player height is determined. It's the same in every sport. If you're on the roster and you play, that's it. Baseball doesn't go by number of plate appearances or number of innings pitched.

But in general, the groups would balance each other out. Since 1990, there have been about 20% more seasons of 6'10" and over players that play less than 800 minutes in a season as 6'4" and under players. But there are over twice as many under 800 minute seasons of players 6'1" and under than there are 7'1" and over. In 1987, there were 31 players under 6'4" that played less than 800 minutes and 7 players under 6'1" that played that amount or less. And there were 6 players 7'1" and over that played 800 minutes or less, and 32 players 6'10" and over that played that amount or less. They couldn't affect things that much. Stiffs come in all sizes.

azuresou1 · Post #6 » by **azuresou1** » Mon Apr 12, 2010 7:00 pm

What TrueLAfan said, plus we all know the NBA generally inflates player heights.

jicama · Post #7 » by **jicama** » Tue Apr 13, 2010 1:47 pm

Well, I did the 1986-87 players and confirm that these players' avg height (according to b-r.com) is 79.024 inches.
Weighted by their minutes played, it's 79.151 .
NBA.com (according to trueLAfan) says it was 79.36"

The difference between NBA.com and the unweighted average is equivalent to counting another 10 Manute Bols hanging out on benches somewhere.
Or, it's equivalent to 113 players (about 1/3 of the league) having their heights inflated by 1".
Maybe they rounded up everyone's fractional inch?

Some of these guys' heights are a matter of conjecture or even legend. Maybe b-r.com takes the lower estimate.

Post #8 » by **NO-KG-AI** » Wed Apr 14, 2010 7:07 pm

joyner82 wrote:well Durant is listed at 6'9 but he's really closer to 6'11 or 7'

He's 6'9 in socks. So I'd say he's closer to 6'9

ElGee · Post #9 » by **ElGee** » Wed Apr 14, 2010 9:31 pm

NO-KG-AI wrote:
joyner82 wrote:well Durant is listed at 6'9 but he's really closer to 6'11 or 7'

He's 6'9 in socks. So I'd say he's closer to 6'9

How old was he when measured?

joyner82 · Post #10 » by **joyner82** » Thu Apr 15, 2010 2:24 am

ElGee wrote:
NO-KG-AI wrote:
joyner82 wrote:well Durant is listed at 6'9 but he's really closer to 6'11 or 7'

He's 6'9 in socks. So I'd say he's closer to 6'9

How old was he when measured?

18 and he was 6'10 1/4 with shoes. He's probably closer to 6'11 in shoes now.

Post #11 » by **TrueLAfan** » Thu Apr 15, 2010 4:46 pm

Oh, it’s not me. I posted the link to the nba.com article from 2008 that lists average going back more than two decades. And, actually, the average player height is listed at 6’ 7.62” for 1986-7. So the difference is actually the same as adding 25 Manute Bols to the league ..or having 100 players (30% of the league) misrepresent their height by one inch, and 50 more (15% of the league) misrepresent their height by two inches. It’s a massive error. Usually, the error is smaller…”only” around .25 to .35 of an inch.

What I’m wondering is…whewre do the bigger heights come from? Is there a supersecret list that the NBA keeps that has “real” heights that never gets leaked, but everyone knows about...kinf of like something from [i]National Treasure[i]? Or do they just count on people not doing the math and finding out that they’re colossally full of crap? I vote for the latter, although the secret list would be kinda cool.

Post #12 » by **floppymoose** » Sat May 1, 2010 10:22 am

I've heard of talking up the product, but this is ridiculous. :eyebrows:

astrallite · Post #13 » by **astrallite** » Wed May 12, 2010 10:36 pm

The average height of the NBA player is about 6'5.5 barefoot if you look at the Pre-Draft measurements. That's remained statistically constant (+/- 0.5 inches) in that last 30 years or so.

The Main Event · Post #14 » by **The Main Event** » Wed Jul 7, 2010 8:02 pm

floppymoose wrote:I've heard of talking up the product, but this is ridiculous.

There you go objectifying the talent. :lol:

Shinyhubcaps · Post #15 » by **Shinyhubcaps** » Sun Aug 1, 2010 9:19 pm

Are the player lists the same? I think that basketball-reference.com only uses players to play in 1 game. NBA may use players who were on active rosters but never played, or players measured pre-season who never played. Chris Andersen, Blake Griffin, Yao Ming, and a lot of other big guys have missed entire years.