Where Have All the NBA’s Little Guys Gone?
With only two players in the entire league listed under 6 feet, the tiny guard — once a staple — has all but disappeared from the modern game.
All eyes are on the NBA’s megatall players like Victor Wembanyama (7-foot-4), Kristaps Porziņģis (7-2) and Chet Holmgren (7-1). Lost among all the towering trees, however, are players at the opposite end of the height spectrum, suddenly a dying breed.
Memphis Grizzlies point guard Jacob Gilyard (5-8) was the league’s shortest player for much of this season according to NBA.com. Only recently was he overtaken when Markquis Nowell (5-7) made his NBA debut for the Toronto Raptors on Wednesday. But out of 468 total players currently in the league, Gilyard and Nowell are the lone pair listed under 6 feet tall.
“I feel like, if you look at years past, there's usually been a couple more than just two,” Gilyard told me last week. “So I think it's kind of weird to see that there's less of us … But I think it's cool that guys under 6-foot are still sticking around and finding ways to have an impact in games.”
By Wins Above Replacement (using my Estimated RAPTOR player ratings), players under 6 feet have contributed just 0.5% of leaguewide value this season — a figure that includes Gilyard’s solid performance with Memphis so far — and only 0.09% over the past five seasons. While little guys have never exactly dominated the NBA, their current share is a far cry from the nearly 2% of league WAR they produced in 2013-14 — led by Isaiah Thomas and Ty Lawson — and especially their nearly 5% mark from 1994-95 — the heyday of Dana Barros, Muggsy Bogues, Avery Johnson, Terrell Brandon, Keith “Mister” Jennings, Spud Webb and Michael Adams.
In their time, guys like Bogues and Brandon weren’t merely scrapping for a spot in the league, either — they were big stars. Brandon graced the cover of Sports Illustrated in February 1997, with a headline crowning him the NBA’s best point guard. Bogues was in Space Jam and remains one of the league’s most beloved and iconic players ever, improbably carving out a 14-year career despite standing just 5-foot-3 (He is still the shortest player in NBA history, standing two inches shy of the 5-5 Earl Boykins).
So what happened to the NBA’s little guys? Gilyard has a few theories.
First, he thinks players sometimes fudge their listed heights, a longstanding open secret across the league that may help explain why the only players supposedly under 6 feet are 5-7 and 5-8. “I would imagine there’s somebody out there that’s 5-11,” Gilyard said.
But on a more serious note, the evolution of the sport has also helped push the little guy to the sidelines.
“The game’s changed a little bit,” he said. “Now there’s a lot of bigger wings, a lot of bigger forwards, bigger guards, there's a lot more length out there on the court, a lot more athleticism than there was back then.”
This makes it tougher than ever to operate at a height disadvantage — a learning curve Gilyard even discovered when moving up from college to the NBA. At Richmond, Gilyard started for five seasons, racking up the most steals in Division I history and orchestrating a memorable first-round NCAA Tournament upset against Iowa in 2022.
Like other lead guards before him and since (including Nowell this past March), Gilyard could use his superior speed, quickness, basketball IQ and skill level to impose his will on a college game despite his short stature. But he says he’s found the pro game to work differently.
“There’s a lot more forwards that can do a lot more in the NBA,” he said. “If you look at guys like Giannis [Antetokounmpo] and [Jayson] Tatum, they can do more than the average forward in college. So you can go through them, and they can take over the game, whereas in college I think there’s a lot more good guards than there are good forwards.”
Another element working against smaller players is big men like Holmgren and Wembanyama are increasingly playing like guards.
While the share of league value from 7-footers has increased to 9.0% this season, its highest level since sitting at 9.9% in 2005-06, it’s not due to a proliferation of traditional low-post center types. On the contrary, modern prototype bigs such as Lauri Markkanen and Porziņģis, who respectively rank Nos. 2 and 3 in WAR among 7-footers behind Philadelphia’s Joel Embiid, do a lot of their damage by shooting from the outside.
If coaches and front offices can now get playmaking and shooting out of taller players, it removes some of the comparative advantages that little guys had previously employed to offset their lack of height.
“In the grand scheme of things, it would be better if you could have a 6-7 point guard,” Gilyard said. “You would assume he’s going to be better than the 5-foot point guard.”
“But,” he added with a smile, “it doesn’t always pan out that way.”
The long and the short of NBA height trends converged on Saturday when Gilyard’s Grizzlies visited Wembanyama’s San Antonio Spurs. Before the game, I asked Gilyard how he was preparing to face a player who is nearly 2 feet taller than him.
“I’m not gonna think too much about it,” he said. “At the end of the day, it’s a big man — I’m probably not gonna go over there and shoot over him, but I subconsciously won’t think about it. He’s a pretty good rim protector, as are most centers, but I’m just going out there and playing my game.”
That brand of fearlessness — paired with the considerable chip he plays with on his shoulder — has served Gilyard well, just as it did for most of the tiny standouts from the game’s past. Whether the league eventually revives the ‘90s golden era of dynamic small guards or not, the NBA little guy will never truly die as long as there are players like Gilyard and Nowell around to keep the flame burning.
Filed under: NBA