New age performance metrics in the current NBA landscape: how win shares and wage disparity affect an NBA player’s value and productivity
Date
2017-06
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Abstract
This study analyzes whether Win Shares, a newer metric which takes into account
a player’s contribution as part of a basketball team, instead of the usual measure of
individual performance (the Player Efficiency Rating or PER) can better explain the
salary of an individual player. Additionally, this study also analyzed whether the level of
salary dispersion affects the team output production based on theories articulated in past
studies. To do this, the authors constructed the Gini coefficient as a measure of wage
disparity in a team. The results obtained from the regressions indicate that Win Shares are
undoubtedly a better measure of an NBA player’s value compared to the traditional
measure of individual contributions which is PER. Moreover, the results also showed that
the level of wage disparity is not significant and thus, does not affect production, which is
different from the findings in other sports such as baseball.
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Keywords
NBA