Yuki Kawamura is 5'8". Zach Edey is 7'4". They are teammates on the Memphis Grizzlies, which means that technically speaking, their job descriptions are identical. Let's celebrate that, and let's talk about which sports do and do not permit for such wonderful disparity in size and shape.
Category
🥇
SportsTranscript
00:00Yuki puts his arms up and Zach grabs his wrists and then swings them around like uppies
00:07Some sports are designed to mobilize people of all different shapes and sizes
00:12Usually it's the sports with distinct positions
00:15Kickers don't look anything like nose tackles and you can usually tell who's the shortstop and who's the designated hitter
00:21sports with less defined roles tend to select for similar bodies if
00:26Every player on the field has the same rules the same responsibilities and opportunities
00:30They can be quite similar in age size and build
00:34Every basketball players job is pretty much the same if you really think about it
00:39so you can build a team without all that much physical diversity and yet every once in a while even as
00:46Positionally fluid a sport as basketball gives us this. Oh
00:51It's me and Seth
00:53Which is which I'm
00:5517 obviously and you with a lot of surgery are number 14. You don't know what I look like
01:02I'm the basketballs
01:04And we're all so happy
01:07Okay, guys get serious for a second. What we're looking at here is to Memphis Grizzlies
01:132024 rookies we have Zach Eadie on the left who is seven foot four three hundred and five pounds tall drink of water
01:19Yeah, and on the right we have Yuki Kawamura, who is five eight one fifty nine average drink of water
01:26It all kind of blurs together for you my height on it
01:29Well kind of yeah, we're six perfect average of the two of you are about average height for an NBA player
01:34Yeah, well right now you're you're as tall as Zach
01:37I'm force four times as big as they are right now, but in real life. Yeah
01:43Yeah
01:43These guys are teammates and you are looking here at for the 2425 season
01:48one of the tallest players in the NBA if not the history of the game and
01:52one of the shortest players in the NBA if not the history of the game and they are recreating a
01:58legendary and even more extreme height differential photo
02:01from I think 1988 of
02:03Manute Bowl and Z Bogues on the Washington Bullets
02:06Which makes you wonder about the basketball thing. My theory is that in the original they were like, oh you guys are really different
02:12Hey, how do we show that and the only thing they had laying around was basketballs. They played in the 80s, right?
02:17Mm-hmm. I think that was there where they were still measuring basketball players by basketballs, right?
02:22Yeah, like horses being with 20 apples high. That's what the metric system is
02:29These two people on paper have the same job they have the same job you go to the same office
02:33They they not only do they go to the same office, but they have the same role. They are basketball player
02:39There are no quarterbacks. There are no designated hitters. There are no kickers
02:43These are just basketball players their jobs and their responsibilities and the rules around them are
02:48Identical get the ball in the basket stop the other team from getting the ball in the basket
02:51Mm-hmm all the variation between players and basketball is organic like we have evolved over time
02:58point guards like Yuki Kawamura a player can be small as long as they're really good at passing and
03:04Gigantic people like Zacky who can be slow and less agile as long as they're deft around the basket really tall really dominant
03:11It was never written into the rules of basketball that like these guys can only do this these guys can only stand here
03:17These guys can only use this kind of equipment
03:20Everybody plays the same way until people strategically decide to do different
03:24There are so many cases where in basketball that ends up with guys kind of being
03:29Versatile and all the same height all the same size, whatever, but then you also get this like extreme differentiation
03:34I think that's very beautiful. And I thank you for coming to my TED talk. I
03:39Do question. Hi. Yeah
03:44First time long time. So this is actually a question
03:46I've always sort of had about basketball have maybe safe space to
03:50Embarrassed to ask the positions. They are not like you just said in football quarterback does a very specific thing there
03:57It's it's regulated by the rules you can and cannot do certain things and that means that certain body types work really well for those
04:03Roles, that's not as true in basketball, correct? Yeah. No, that's where it's talking through in the NFL for instance
04:09like there are eligible receivers the positions in basketball to answer your question are
04:15Concepts there is no rule that differentiates a point guard from a center. There is no
04:21Difference and responsibility between those two people it's just strategic is their own basketball
04:26Against one teammate throwing another teammate like if Zach picked up Yuki threw him up to block a shot
04:34Allowable, I honestly don't know. I think I have a sort of a piggyback question on that that I've always asked myself
04:42Okay
04:44Okay, so I guess I have two questions that I've always asked as a tall person
04:49What are short people good for in life, but also in basketball evading evading smoke?
04:57Sure, yeah surviving that first scene of ghost ship
05:02I didn't know we had Randy Newman on the panel today
05:12Tell me what
05:15But for real, what are short people good for here's a good example Yuki Kawamura is
05:20Short for a point guard right? Like he is not just the shortest player on the floor
05:25He's one of the shortest players in the league. Yuki Kawamura is one of the best passers in the entire NBA
05:29That's why he's on an NBA roster. Okay, he has really incredible court vision really incredible timing and just a very deft
05:37Touch passing and defensively I would say he has an ability to be a pest and to like get under people
05:43Interrupt the flow of dribbling and passing because of his size and because he works really hard, you know
05:49the sort of like
05:50Stereotypes are that if you're big you can get away with not being as skilled as evidenced by I don't know
05:56Shaq being one of the worst free throw shooters in human history and yet being dominant
05:59Whereas if you're small, you got to be very very good. Sure. Yeah, I looked around for other
06:05Extreme differences between
06:08Athletes either as teammates or opponents. I was curious about the biggest weight difference between football players
06:14I didn't find a clear historic answer
06:17I'm happy to take it from someone in the comments if they can find it
06:20But I did notice that on the 2010 Washington football team kick returner Brandon Banks weighed 150 pounds
06:28Mm-hmm, and he played with Anthony Bryant a defensive tackle who was
06:32360 pounds measured that year. So a
06:35210 pound difference between the range of them on the flight for away games lap
06:43Well, cuz then you don't have to pay for another seat you don't have to pay for another seat and then it's not imbalanced
06:47sure, I think my favorite photos of
06:50extreme height differences in the context of the sport where when Ronald Torres was on the Yankees and was Aaron judge's teammate Ronald
06:58Reyes being I don't know maybe five five five six and Aaron judge's like six eight or something, you know
07:04And they would celebrate a double play to end an inning or whatever and they would run up and like he would jump to do
07:09A high-five. I think that's great. You got it. You got to play into it if your teammates with this much of a height difference
07:14Yeah, similarly, I think Zack and Yuki should come up with their own signature
07:19Celebration. What do you think in Yuki puts his arms up and Zach grabs his wrists and then swings around
07:29Exactly what I'm talking about these would be very good or if Zach just does the like old-school bully thing
07:35I'm just armed to the forehead of Yuki. Oh
07:43This is cool that even in a sport like basketball where there is not necessarily
07:49Differentiation that you can still get this because yeah
07:51If you were to show a kicker and alignment next to each other you'd be like, yeah, obviously like I know their teammates
07:57But they play positions that might as well be different sports and that's not the case in basketball. Yeah, I mean, I guess yeah breaking
08:04Sports down by what is your job is very interesting. Yeah, there's a spectrum of I would put basketball at I mean
08:12There's individual sports
08:13I guess at the far end of positional fluidity where it's like if you can do it, you can do it
08:17But then of team sports basketball
08:20Everyone has the same job on paper on the opposite end would be maybe American football of
08:26there are very specific rules about positional designations and
08:31What you can do or lacrosse with different equipment for different people?
08:35I know like volleyball has some rules about different positions and that definitely dictates like what size person does what right?
08:43Baseball is fun because on offense everyone's job is basically the same, you know, you change the batting order
08:48But on defense they could not be more different golf is good the same job and it's solo
08:54Yeah, so you get a real crazy variation there. I think what other sport can you have someone?
08:59I mean tennis is John Daly on one end of the spectrum and then yeah, and they are pick literally anyone with
09:08You know, Rory McIlroy, yeah are doing the same thing
09:11Yeah, well, I think speaking you can extend that to like there are golfers in their 90s and their goal
09:18Who are nine years old
09:21Golfer y'all haven't seen little Tiger Woods some sports individual sports in particular
09:28iron out
09:29differences in
09:31Size and stature with weight classes like I was thinking about this and you know in tennis for instance
09:37Evil Karlovic was 610 and he would play guys who were you know, five five
09:42I was really hoping you were about to say tennis you
09:46I
09:47Would watch heavyweight tennis
09:50here's a bunch of people who are just
09:55200 mile-per-hour serves like let them juice
09:59Lots of injuries lots of injury. You've never seen sumo doubles
10:04It's incredible
10:06What would be the best sport to watch the most extreme matchup take place think boxing?
10:12That's like punch-out basically the thing that jumps to mind is I am really happy when I see a clip where it's one
10:19Massive robot and one very nimble robot and battle bots. Sure
10:24And it's a battle by and it's like here is this really small
10:28Speedy robot that you're not gonna be able to flip which is always how you win
10:33Going on just like the crusher where it's like on robot anabolic steroids
10:38I mean, this is basically if you're watching planet Earth and like, you know a bunch of ants take down like a whole raccoon
10:44Or whatever, right? I know I feel like that's Pacific
10:49It's great, it's great