NBA players got much taller until the late 1980s — then heights plateaued and have slightly declined

Asked:“Have NBA players been getting taller over the years? Is there a trend?”

Two independent analyses of league-average listed height, in inches: a 75-season annual series (1947–2021) built from 24,841 player-season records covering 4,504 players, and a sparser 17-observation series at four-year intervals (1952–2016). Most annual points (81.5% of the 92 plotted observations) come from the single RunRepeat source; the second series serves as validation.

RunRepeat annual series, 1947–2021 (75 seasons)Independent R analysis, four-year intervals, 1952–2016 (17 points)

Average height rose +4.20 inches over 1947–2021, from 74.13 in (188.3 cm) to 78.33 in (199.0 cm) — but −0.87 in since the 2004 peak of 79.20 in (201.2 cm). runrepeat.com

Nearly all of the growth happened before the late 1980s; from then on the league hovered near 79 inches for three decades. runrepeat.com

The independent series agrees on the shape: 76.1 in in 1952, a 79.1 in peak in 1988, and 79.0 in by 2016 (+2.9 in overall, −0.1 in from its peak). rstudio-pubs-static.s3.amazonaws.com

The two sources differ by a few tenths of an inch in overlapping years — listed roster heights and averaging methods vary, so such gaps should not be overinterpreted. runrepeat.com

Year	Series	Inches	cm	Source

Method: 92 observations of league-average NBA player height by season — 75 annual values (1947–2021) extracted from RunRepeat's analysis of 24,841 player-season records across 4,504 players and 69 seasons, plus 17 four-year-interval values (1952–2016) from an independent RStudio analysis of a historical NBA dataset. Heights are listed roster heights; averaging methodology differs between the two datasets, so differences of a few tenths of an inch are within noise. 81.5% of plotted observations come from one source host (two hosts total). Nothing was cut; all rows are shown in the table.

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