Muggsy Bogues at 5'3" — two inches under anyone else, ever — and the under-six-foot club has admitted someone in every decade since the 1950s. All 11 listings under 5'8", measured from real rosters.
Read the full story ↓Across 5,152 players in the league’s all-time roster register, nobody else is listed within two inches of Muggsy Bogues. Every player ever listed under 5'8":
| Height | Player | Seasons in the record |
|---|---|---|
| 5'3" | Muggsy Bogues | 1987–2000 |
| 5'5" | Earl Boykins | 1998–2011 |
| 5'6" | Mel Hirsch | 1946–1946 |
| 5'7" | Herm Klotz | 1947–1947 |
| 5'7" | Wat Misaka | 1947–1947 |
| 5'7" | Monte Towe | 1976–1976 |
| 5'7" | Spud Webb | 1985–1997 |
| 5'7" | Greg Grant | 1989–1995 |
| 5'7" | Keith Jennings | 1992–1994 |
| 5'7" | Markquis Nowell | 2023–2023 |
| 5'7" | Yuki Kawamura | 2024–2025 |
The years column is the quiet story: most of these careers are a season or two, but Muggsy Bogues, Earl Boykins, and Spud Webb each lasted more than a decade — and the two newest names entered in the 2020s, three quarters of a century after the first.
144 players in the register are listed under six feet. The share peaked in the league’s earliest classes and has run between one and three percent of entrants every decade since — small, but never zero:
| Entry decade | Under six feet | All entrants | Share |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1950s | 10 | 281 | 3.6% |
| 1960s | 4 | 315 | 1.3% |
| 1970s | 6 | 572 | 1.0% |
| 1980s | 14 | 662 | 2.1% |
| 1990s | 16 | 669 | 2.4% |
| 2000s | 11 | 690 | 1.6% |
| 2010s | 21 | 894 | 2.3% |
| 2020s | 9 | 618 | 1.5% |
One league roster register, 5,152 usable players, each counted once at his listed height; 52 unparsable listings are excluded rather than guessed at. Listed height is the league’s own figure — the same register behind the tallest NBA players ever and average NBA height, so the three pages can never disagree with each other.
More from the record book: how long a pro career lasts, the average NFL retirement age, how big the average NFL player is, average NBA height, the tallest NBA players ever, average WNBA height, how many players are in the NFL, how many players are in the NBA, the average MLB player, the perfect MLB season and every perfect season.
Muggsy Bogues, listed at 5'3" — two inches under anyone else in the league's register — and he lasted from 1987 to 2000. The next-shortest listing ever is Earl Boykins at 5'5".
The newest name on the all-time list is Yuki Kawamura at 5'7", entered 2024 — proof the door never closed. Every player ever listed under 5'8" is in the table above, and two of the eleven entered in the 2020s.
5'7" in the register, across a 1985–1997 career — one of eight players sharing the tallest rung of this list, and one of only three of the eleven to last more than a decade.
144 players have been listed under six feet across the league's history. The share is small in every era — it peaked in the earliest classes and runs between one and three percent of entrants in the modern ones — but it has never been zero.
About 15 inches: the current-era average is 6'6.3", and the full position and decade breakdown lives on the average NBA height page — same register, same rules as this one.
That is the fun of the game this page lives on: the point guards you draft on the basketball board come from the same register these listings do, and a great small guard next to a seven-foot center is the oldest roster trick in the book.
