Basketball players are almost a completely separate population from soccer players. The shortest basketball player would almost be too tall for soccer.

This is definitely an exaggeration. The median NBA player is 6'5" according to [0]. Most top teams will have a few players around that height, even excluding goalkeepers (though heavily weighted towards central defenders and centre-forwards).

Even if it's directionally correct, the point made further up in the thread is very important: basketball players aren't a different population from soccer players at age 14, when they need to pick something to be serious about if they are going to end up in the big leagues. Lots of them choose basketball, turn out not big enough, but would have been perfectly fine in soccer.

[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/1btj60p/oc...

"too tall for soccer" is something of a weird statement, given the large advantage height gives in the game. Even at high levels, some teams' strategy resvolves around having a couple tall guys (and many other teams keep tall guys to deal with those same strategies). It of course isn't everything, given the need for stamina, sprinting, and strength, which are hard to have all at once in a tall person. But its not uncommon for defenders and some strikers to be 6'8" or upward - average height in the premier league is 6'1" and creeping upward each year