High school hoopster height and the death of the NBA 7-footer

When the Houston Rockets traded away Clint Capela, fans wondered if "ancient" 7-footer Tyson Chandler would play center, or fellow 7-footer Isaiah Hartenstein, or if PJ Tucker or the newly acquired Robert Covington (I said he could) would man the post?

Well, Daryl Morey is committed to avoiding the 7-footer. So the answer is no on the first two.

That said, Max Preps informs us that for every Chandler, Rudy Gobert, Unicorn Kristaps Porzingis, Joel Embiid or Nikola Jokic, there are almost twice as many 7-footers at the high school level.

Well, it's actually worse than that. Max said it wasn't cherry-picking much above 6-10, but I don't know if that means at the high school level, or the NBA level? Because while it claims 31 NBA 7-footers, the league itself (good for honesty after a long history of height inflation) only listed 15 at the start of this year. That includes very in-development Tacko Fall and very limited Boban Marjanovic, along with very much real center Marc Gasol and the decent Ivica Zubac. (Dallas is the only team with two; fortunately, Mark Cuban isn't like Peter the Great on his royal guard, contra fans who wanted him to keep Salah Mejri as well.)

Throwing out Mejri, since he's not with an NBA team, the ratio is not just under 2-1, it's a full 4-1 in favor of the high schools. Yes, there's tens of thousands of high schools in the nation. But, none of their players is older than 19, and very few are even that old; just about all are 18 or younger, many still growing.

So what's going to happen to those players past high school?

With the one-and-done college-to-NBA approach, most of these players have to know that they have to find college coaches who not only want them on their teams to win at the collegiate level, but can best prep them to shoot some 3s and to occasionally handle the ball outside. (Unless the NBA gets refs to start calling more fouls in the paint, making post play more valuable.)

How much help do they get already at the high school level? The top players featured in the Max story go to some sort of private schools or academies. Now, while those places may have coaches that can work on pro-developing LeBron's son Bronny, how many know how to develop centers for today's NBA needs? And, to do so while still trying to maintain national school rankings levels with places like Max and win titles so they can also recruit elite guards and forwards?

Or, move up to the college level. Per Myron Medcalf, the Jayhawks' Udoka Azubuike might be college player of the year, but, he won't be lottery pick and might fall to the back third of the first round because the's not what the NBA wants today.