According to a Wall Street Journal study, nearly half of all NBA players are relatives of elite athletes.

The WSJ defined elite athletes as anyone playing sports at the professional, collegiate or national team levels. Based upon this criteria, 218 of the league's 447 players—or 48.5 percent of the talent pool—are related to elite athletes.

While height is a big factor in whether a player makes it to the NBA or not, it's stunning that the nation's other major sports don't see a similar trend. Just 17.5 percent of NFL players are related to elite athletes, while in the MLB the percentage is just 14.5 percent.

Average height in the NBA is 6-foot-6, about nine inches taller than the average height for a male in the United States of America. For comparison's sake, the average height in the NFL is 6-foot-2 while average height in the MLB is 6-foot-1.

Joel Hirschhorn attributed height and genetics as the main determinant for why NBA players are related more to elite athletes than the other major sports:

“That’s a pretty reasonable hypothesis that’s why so many basketball players have so many relatives,” said Joel Hirschhorn, a lead genetics researcher at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT and a pediatric endocrinologist at Boston Children’s Hospital. “We know that being six-feet, nine-inches tall greatly increases the chance of having another relative that’s close to six-nine.”

It's worth noting that the league's reigning MVP Stephen Curry, had a father who played 16 seasons in the NBA. He also has a brother named Seth Curry currently playing for the Sacramento Kings.

[button width=”full” button size=”bigger” color=”custom” align=”center” textcolor=”#ffffff” texthcolor=”#ffffff” bgcolor=”#8b0000″ link=”https://clutchpoints.com/steve-kerr-warriors-ready-rally/”]NEXT: Steve Kerr: Warriors are ready to rally versus Thunder[/button]