Of basketball players it is often said they play either taller or shorter than their listed height. Most play shorter. Only a few play taller.

Carl Henry belongs on Kansas University’s All-Taller team.

Although standing just 6-foot-5, Henry rebounded like he was 6-7 or 6-8. He was as good an offensive rebounder for his size as I’ve ever seen. Henry also had a knack for scoring so-called garbage baskets. If a ball was loose on the floor under the rim, Henry always seemed to horse it in.

As I recall, Henry, who played two seasons for the Jayhawks in the early 1980s, was blessed with instinct and athleticism, but lacked shooting range.

Since there are no 6-5 forwards in the NBA, Henry quietly faded away – as so many college players do – until he resurfaced a couple of years ago when his oldest son emerged as a college basketball prospect.

C.J. Henry, two inches shorter than his father, made an oral commitment to attend the school where his father and mother (Barbara Adkins) both wore basketball uniforms, but everybody knew Carl Jr. would be a first-round selection in the baseball draft and would go for the dough.

Sure enough, the Yankees took young Henry with the 17th pick in last year’s first round, signed him to a contract that included a $1.6 million bonus, and off he went to the minor leagues.

Now many observers are wondering if Henry made a mistake.

A red flag arose Sunday when the Yankees included Henry in a trade with the Philadelphia Phillies. Baseball teams just don’t unload first-round picks that quickly.

Does that mean the Yankees wouldn’t know a good young player from a Saguaro cactus? Or does it mean the Yanks are better talent judges than we suspect?

Whatever the answer, Henry has not hit the way the Yankees had hoped. In a short-season league last summer, the 6-3 shortstop batted .249 with just three home runs, although he did have 17 stolen bases in 48 games.

This summer, Henry, who recently turned 20, has been with the Yankees’ Class A farm team in Charleston, S.C., where, again, he hasn’t hit. When the Yanks traded him, Henry was batting .232 with just two homers and 33 RBIs in 76 games.

Does that mean Henry never will hit? Of course it doesn’t.

Take Brian McRae, for example.

Back in 1985, McRae rejected a KU football scholarship to sign with the Kansas City Royals, who made him – coincidentally, like Henry – the 17th player selected in the June draft.

When McRae was 20 years old, he was also playing in A ball, where he hit .252 with just one home run in a full season. McRae needed five-plus seasons in the minor to reach the big leagues, but, when he did, McRae logged 10 years and earned an estimated $20 million.

Not that McRae was ever a star, but he was an every-day center fielder for several seasons, finishing with a .261 batting average while averaging about 10 home runs a year.

If Henry fashions a baseball career anything like McRae’s, Carl and Barbara’s son definitely made the right decision.