Growth Science
Our guides to exercise and height and the best sports for bone growth already touch on why no sport changes final height. This piece goes deeper on basketball specifically: the actual selection-effect data behind why pro players are so tall, the mechanism that makes the myth feel true, and the real physical trade-off — jump-heavy growth-plate injuries — that basketball-loving kids and parents should know about instead.
Where the "Basketball Makes You Taller" Belief Comes From
The myth survives because of a simple mix-up between timing and causation. Kids who are into basketball tend to play it throughout the exact years — roughly ages 10 through 17 — when the body is doing most of its height growth anyway, driven by puberty's growth spurt. A kid grows several inches over a basketball season regardless of whether they touched a ball, but if they were playing basketball the whole time, it's easy to credit the sport instead of the calendar.
The second piece is more interesting: coaches and scouts really do prefer taller players, at every level from rec league to the NBA draft. That means basketball actively filters for height at every stage of selection — the players who get more court time, make travel teams, and advance to elite levels are disproportionately the ones who were already tall or maturing early for their age. Watching that pattern play out looks a lot like "basketball made them tall," when what's actually happening is closer to "tall kids get funneled into and kept in basketball."
What Actually Determines Height
Height is one of the most heavily studied heritable traits in human biology. A large pooled analysis of 45 twin cohorts across 20 countries — more than 180,000 paired measurements — found that genetics accounts for up to 83% of height variation in adolescent boys and 76% in girls, with the genetic share increasing as kids move through puberty. The remaining variation comes mostly from nutrition, sleep, overall health, and illness during the growing years — not from any particular sport or exercise.
Height itself is set by the same biology covered elsewhere on this site: sex hormones drive the growth plates to lengthen bone during the peak height velocity window, then signal those same plates to fuse and close permanently once puberty finishes. No amount of jumping, dunking, or vertical training changes when or how much a growth plate grows — the plate responds to hormones, not to basketball-specific mechanical load.
The Real Story: Selection, Not Causation
The clearest evidence against the myth is how extreme professional basketball height actually is compared to the general population — far more extreme than participation alone could explain if height were something the sport built rather than a trait it selects for.
| Group | Average Height | Vs. General Population | What Explains It |
|---|---|---|---|
| Average U.S. Adult Man | ~5'9" (175.7 cm) | 50th percentile, by definition | The reference point — half of men are taller, half shorter. |
| Average NBA Player | ~6'6.7" (199.5 cm) | ~99.9th percentile | Roughly 24 cm above the male average — a gap far too large for any training effect to produce. |
| Average U.S. Adult Woman | ~5'3.6" (161.5 cm) | 50th percentile, by definition | The reference point for adult women. |
| Average WNBA Player | ~6'0.8" (184.9 cm) | ~99.9th percentile | Roughly 23 cm above the female average — the same order of selection seen in the men's game. |
Using CDC population height data, both of those professional averages land at roughly the same point on the curve: taller than about 99.9% of same-sex adults, or somewhere in the neighborhood of 1 in 2,000 to 2,500 people. That's not a training outcome — no supervised program moves someone's height by two to three standard deviations. It's a filtering outcome, the result of a multi-stage selection process that starts in childhood.
Research on basketball talent selection confirms exactly this mechanism directly. A study of youth players trying out for a national team program found that height, weight, and maturity status (specifically, an earlier estimated age at peak height velocity) predicted who got selected — not the other way around. Similar findings show up across youth basketball generally: taller, earlier-maturing players are consistently more likely to be chosen for elite squads and to advance further in the sport, a pattern separate from and in addition to their on-court skill. For a sense of just how far the extremes go, our tallest basketball players guide profiles players like Sun Mingming and Olivier Rioux — both around 7'9", and in Sun's case, a height explained by pituitary gigantism, a distinct medical condition, not basketball training.
Selection compounds at every level. A kid who's tall for their age is more likely to make a competitive team, more likely to get playing time and coaching attention once on it, more likely to be recruited to the next level, and so on. Each step filters again for height. By the time you're looking at an NBA roster, you're looking at the tail end of a filter that's been running since middle school — not a group of people whose height was built by the sport itself.
What Basketball Does Do for a Growing Body
None of this means basketball is irrelevant to a growing kid's bones — it just isn't doing what the myth claims. Basketball's mix of jumping and unpredictable cutting and pivoting is classified as "odd-impact" loading, one of the categories most consistently linked to strong bone mineral density gains in young athletes. That's a real, separate benefit from height, covered in full in our guide to the best sports for bone growth, including how basketball compares to other sports on that specific measure.
The Real Physical Risk: Jump-Loading Injuries in Young Players
The genuine physical story with basketball and growing bodies isn't about height at all — it's about how much repetitive jumping and landing the sport demands during exactly the years bone is outpacing the tendons and growth plates attached to it, especially around peak height velocity. Basketball shows up disproportionately often in research on two specific overuse injuries tied to that mismatch.
What This Means For You
The practical takeaway: basketball doesn't make anyone taller — height is roughly 80% genetic, and the sport's extreme average heights reflect who gets selected and advanced through the sport, not what the sport does to a person's skeleton. What basketball genuinely offers a growing body is a real bone-density benefit from its jumping and cutting demands, paired with a real, documented injury pattern — Sever's disease and jumper's knee — tied to that same jump-heavy load. For the data behind just how tall the sport's true outliers are, see our tallest basketball players guide, and for the full bone-density comparison across sports, see our guide to the best sports for bone growth.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does playing basketball make you taller?
No. Height is roughly 80% determined by genetics, and no sport — including basketball — changes when or how much the growth plates lengthen bone. The extreme average heights seen in the NBA and WNBA reflect decades of selecting taller, earlier-maturing players, not a physical effect of playing the sport.
Why are basketball players so much taller than average, then?
Because height is a major advantage in the sport — for rebounding, shot-blocking, and finishing near the basket — coaches and scouts favor taller players at every level, from youth tryouts through the professional draft. Research on talent selection confirms taller, earlier-maturing players are consistently more likely to be chosen and advanced, which concentrates extreme height at the top of the sport over time.
Can jumping or dunking stimulate growth plates to grow more?
No. Growth plates lengthen bone in response to sex hormones during puberty, not to sport-specific mechanical loading. Jumping does provide a real, separate benefit — building bone mineral density through repeated impact — but that's a bone-strength benefit, not a height benefit.
Is basketball bad for a growing child's joints?
Not inherently, but its jump-heavy demands are linked to specific, well-documented overuse injuries during the growing years — particularly Sever's disease (heel) and patellar tendinopathy or "jumper's knee." These are manageable with early attention; the main advice is not to ignore recurring pain and to build in adequate rest between sessions.
Should a short child avoid basketball since it won't make them taller?
No — height is only one factor in basketball, and plenty of successful players have built careers well below the sport's average height using skill, speed, and basketball IQ. There's no reason to steer a child away from a sport they enjoy just because it won't change their genetic height ceiling; almost no sport does.
