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  • 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?

  • 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.

  • That's exactly the kind of statistical analysis I hoped someone would produce for me, thank you.

    Is a growth spurt of 5 inches at 18-19 years old also relatively common?

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