Basketball Tall

For those of you that dont know I am 6'2" tall. According to the CDC the average height for a 20-29 yr old male is 69.4"or about 5'9". So, in general society I am considered tall. Something else you might not know about me is I like to play basketball. During college I frequently played in pickup games and inter-murals and now I play in an adult men's rec league. I am not any good but I like to play. On these teams I often end up being the tallest guy on the team, which means I get to play center or power forward. Based on the national average height, you might not think much of this. However, one thing I have learned through all my basketball playing, is that real world tall is much different then basketball tall.

When I step onto the court I am often dwarfed. Every team seems to have someone 6'4" or taller. My short 6'2" self cant post up against these Goliaths. Inevitably these tall guys always pick me to guard. They look around at all my shorter teammates and decide that I must be the "big guy". My inside game (what little of it there is) goes into the crapper. This leaves my wondering, as one of my teammate's recently put it, "where are all these guys in real life?"

I walk around work all the time and I dont see all these tall people. I dont think of myself as a giant or anything but I do feel taller then most. Its like as soon as I step onto the basketball court it's like the normal distribution of the world's height get all outta wack. I created figure one to help illustrate how this phenomena feels. See how in the real world I am taller then average, but in the basketball world I am a short guy?

This is a very real and very annoying predicament. What I need is all you 5'9" guys to start playing basketball. Bring the bell curve back to the court because just for once I would like to play in a game where the other guys dont have someone who towers over me.