Suppose ...

... that you decide (using the rules of Short AND Tall) to organize:

                (A) an elite (travel) team -- and

(B) eight low-unit (less height) teams for a league or tournament.

1 From the rules, print a copy of the wall-mark table for one competition group (men, women, age-gender.)
2 Mark the four height levels for judging units on a wall. Wall-marking guideline.
3 To organize (A) the elite (travel) team, ask a club, school or area to assemble 100 prospects. Request "any height whatever" (random in the age and gender).
4 Tallness units will be assigned to the random 100. According to U.S. Dept of Health statistical surveys, the majority will be people of ordinary height (zero units) inasmuch as you requested "any height whatever."
5 Scan the crowd. The rules of Short AND Tall widen your view. For conventional basketball, you would seek out tallness. For Short AND Tall, you note 100 candidates of various heights.
6 By mere glancing, you observe that nearly 80% of the prospects, about 80 of the 100, could pass readily beneath the top of your lowest wall mark (Tallness Minimum). You regard them as 0 units. They are "ordinary height."
7 You judge some dubious ordinaries to be sure on your glancing.
8 To the taller players (about 20%), you assign Units 1-2-3-4 by judging for the lowest of the mark-tops that the player stands under.

9 The judging completes your "availability." Tallness totals approximately 20 units in the 100.

80 at 0 Units, 12 at 1 Unit, 5 at 2 Units, 2 at 3 Units,1 at 4 Units = 100 players

10 You are set to put the elite squad together. Plan for 10 players. If under 10, you add "vacancies" to satisfy the 10 format. Then, a pair of free throws at halftimes would pay for each vacancy.
11Availablity from the random 100 provides plenty of tallness to work with. You weigh the value of units against tall players' individual abilities. You run scrimmages and drills. Then the 20-unit approximation seems to offer ample room for you to take hold of the maximum five-unit allowance.

12 A chosen five resembles a sequence, a "string" of units. The maximum can be: 4-1, 3-1-1, 3-2, 2-2-1, 2-1-1-1, or 1-1-1-1-1. You settle on one of those six possible strings. Then you add enough skilled zero-unit teammates to fill out the format-10 squad. Your elite team is set.

13 Having done (A), the first of your two projects, you approach (B), your plan to hold an eight-team league or tournament. A random 100 candidates serve again as your raw "populace," but the (B) squad formation will be very different.

14 Once more, you predict an 80%-20% proportion for the 100 heights. This is because "that's how people come naturally." Nearly 80 of the hopefuls, you observe, could clear your lowest mark. You check a borderline few at the wall to be sure. Then you judge the tall 20% for units. The "avaiIability" again resembles:

80 at 0 Units, 12 at 1 Unit, 5 at 2 Units, 2 at 3 Units,1 at 4 Units = 100 players

15 You have an equivalent 20 units to work with, but you will now spread the 20 over eight squads, not scan the 20 for 5. You will add zero-unit ordinaries, completing each squad to 10.

16 The task, spreading 20 tall players eight ways, contrasts with organizing the elite squad, when you had many options. The new challenge is more limited.

17 But whether you are organizing an elite squad or many squads, employing the tallness advantage in Short AND Tall is far from automatic. In ranges of populations, tallness clusters near the minimum, with most tall people "just tall" - signifying merely one unit. .A squad may have an availability of only a couple of one or two-unit players, or the few available may lack ability (hoopability).

18 An "under-sized" team, even one having no tallness units, is nonetheless valid. In a recreation league, low-unit squads compete while "protected" by the tallness allowance. Thanks to the five-unit maximum, no opponent of a squad can be a "tall team."