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I don't think the height is necessarily an issue, but the bit in there (in the early 90s) when Jordan insists the team all bulk up and come back hench and physically dominant certainly raises questions for me...
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she asked if this was all above-board
Nearly all of it is below board even when they are jumping, since the bottom of the board is 9' above the surface of the court.
Lols aside, I think USA pro men are as high as god and nature intended, but the Chinese were suspected of breaking girls' legs and setting them at extended length in order to improve their women's basketball team.
are there just a few genetic freaks between 6ft5 and 7ft
Not freaks, just people at the end of the bell curve. About 1% of all US adult males are over 6'4". If 90% of that group are under 6'5", that still leaves something like 30000 men over 6'5" and aged between 20 and 40, compared with 450 active NBA players.
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Watching The Last Dance with my wife, she asked if this was all above-board. At the time the part where Scottie Pippen grew 5 inches over a summer between college years.
I didn't know that happened to Pippen, too. Jordan grew from about 6'3" to 6'6" (or thereabouts) in college. In Jordan's case, the late growth spurt was credited with enabling him to develop the skills and speed of a point guard, and retaining those when he grew. No idea if that's true, but perhaps something similar was the case with Pippen.
Some of the tallest players were also afflicted with growth disorders, e.g. Gheorghe Muresan :
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gheorghe_Mure%C8%99an
And, just to add to Tester's stats, quite a few of the tallest players in the NBA came from abroad, e.g. Manute Bol, Muresan, or Yao Ming, to name just a few of the super-tallest, i.e. way over 7'; a lot of bog-standard seven-footers were also from Europe or elsewhere (e.g., Olajuwon, Nowitzki, Divac). I may misremember it, but I think Mark Eaton was the tallest US-born player for a long time at 7'4". Edit: No, it was actually Chuck Nevitt, whom I didn't know about, and Shawn Bradley is the tallest US player, although he was actually born in Germany.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_tallest_players_in_National_Basketball_Association_history
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A lot of people have a second growth spurt, I did. I was 6'1 at from 16-19ish now im 6'4"
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@tbc
Professional basketball players in the USA are really tall.
Watching The Last Dance with my wife, she asked if this was all above-board. At the time the part where Scottie Pippen grew 5 inches over a summer between college years.
I know very little about basketball. Is it a sport with big whiffs of suspicion around it, or are there just a few genetic freaks between 6ft5 and 7ft who get spotted early and become amazing athletes?