Thesis advisor: Richard McGowan / Can statistical analysis of professional basketball players lead to a more efficient evaluation of a player's worth? Following the recent success of statistic-driven baseball franchises, many basketball executives and followers are beginning to mine the sport's production in search of an all-encompassing player value rating. Teams could thus exploit undervalued players, leading to increased team and fan welfare. My thesis addresses this ongoing debate by examining various player and team statistics in the National Basketball Association (NBA). While I find significant relationships between individual efficiency statistics and team success, I also discover the paramount importance of defensive statistics and balanced team payrolls. This paper proposes a model that would help team executives find players who promote team efficiency, rather than individual production. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2006. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Economics. / Discipline: College Honors Program.

Thesis advisor: Christopher Maxwell / In this paper I present an econometric analysis of selection bias in the NBA Draft from 1995-2003. Employing an interval regression maximum likelihood control model that predicts the eventual value of players based on their Draft position, I pinpoint which groups of players consistently over-perform or under-perform relative to their Draft position. Using this analysis I detect bias pertaining to four different groups of players. There was a bias against high school players, especially those taken in the lottery (the top of the first round of the Draft), which may point to risk-averse tendencies of NBA teams. There was also a bias in favor of centers taken in the lottery, who were consistently drafted too high. Black players were selected too low in the first round, and too high in the second round. The final effect deals with foreign entrants to the Draft. From 1995-2001 foreigners were drafted too low; in 2002 and 2003, when more foreigners were selected, they were drafted too high. My paper details the nature of these biases and analyzes their potential causes. / Thesis (BA) — Boston College, 2008. / Submitted to: Boston College. College of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Economics. / Discipline: Economics Honors Program. / Discipline: College Honors Program.

A historical overview of the collective bargaining process in the three major American sports, and a comparative analysis of the current collective bargaining agreements.

La influencia española y latinoamericana es muy evidente en el NBA. Hay muchos jugadores de América Latina y España que cambiaron la liga. El éxito de jugadores de América Latina y España ha aumentado el número de aficionados latinos y españoles en todo el mundo, y por eso el NBA está cambiando de una perspectiva de mercadeo y de negocios para globalizar la liga.

Since China established professional basketball league in 1995, China aimed to be the world's second professional basketball league. During this period, China¡¦s professional basketball league has experienced so many change and transformation of its policy. The study is build on the reexamination of theories and the establishment of analytical framework, in order to analyze China¡¦s professional basketball league development and transition of economic efficiency. The study discovered that the main problems in China's professional basketball competition market are¡Gthe market supply is uneven distribution¡Fthe whole market less than the size¡Fthe existence of market failure in price regulation¡Fthe existence of market supply and demand imbalance¡Fthe commission¡Ðagency relationship is bad¡Fmore market control¡Flack of market management and service awareness¡FThe relevant legal system is imperfect. In order to solve the problem from several aspects¡Gspeed up the market system and market cultivation and perfection of the elements¡Fstrengthen the market environment, including the CBA league organization, establish a reasonable system of property rights and governance structures¡Fstrengthen the external environment, including the creation of a good policy, formulate and improve relevant laws and regulation system.

NBA general managers are responsible for all aspects of roster management and seek to acquire players with complementary skills. Ayer (2012) examines elements of roster composition, including player types and the impact of the composition of a team’s top two and three players on winning games. I expand the literature on roster composition by redefining player types and examining the impact of star and role player combinations on playoff success. Contrary to popular belief, I find that general managers should avoid superstar point guards, as teams featuring this player type tend to underperform in the playoffs. The results of this study suggest that teams should seek to acquire, among other player types, two elite wings, one defensive-specialist, and one three-point specialist, all found on a total of five championship teams from 1994 to 2013.

This paper aims to measure the economic impact of different NBA player achievements on the athletic apparel companies, Nike, Adidas, and Under Armour. It looks at players affiliated with the brands who participated in three different events in the NBA from from 2007 to 2017: the All-Star game, the All-NBA awards, and starting lineups in the Finals. Monthly stock returns for each company were calculated for the months the events took place: January, February, May, and June. The return of each company was then regressed on total number of players each company had in the events. Four total regressions were run for the months of January, February, May, and June. Understanding the economic implications of endorsed players participating in these events can help athletic apparel companies draft more cost efficient endorsement contracts.

Using economic data collected from 24 different Metropolitan Statistical Areas in the US, this thesis investigates the impact of constructing a new National Basketball Association (NBA) arena on the host city’s economy. When a simplistic model is implemented, which does not control for other economic factors or individual subject heterogeneity, significantly positive economic impacts of arena construction are observed. However, when a more appropriate model specification is implemented that controls for economic activity and individual heterogeneity, these effects are no longer statistically significant. This comparative analysis ultimately highlights the importance of appropriate model specification and supports the conclusion that new NBA arenas, by themselves, are not significant catalysts of urban economic development.

This thesis, which is divided into theoretical and analytical part, deals with the analysis of the remuneration of referees in professional basketball leagues in the U.S. and Europe. Consequently, it compares and evaluates these systems. In the theoretical section first it explains the rules of basketball and its popularity in the world compared to other sports. It mentions here about the two most prestigious competitions of the world basketball - the NBA and Euroleague. Analytical section begins with an explanation of the functions and work of a basketball referees. There is also explained the process of how to become a basketball referee. After that, it analyzes the two options of their remuneration system on the example of Czech basketball league NBL and American league NBA. It also compares these different evaluation systems. Referees had a chance to say their opinion through interviews and questionnaires, which is summarized in the penultimate chapter of the analytical work. In the last chapter it presents a SWOT analysis of the American way of remuneration of arbitrators and the possibility of its application to the European competitions.

Recently, strategies of National Basketball Association (NBA) teams have evolved with the skillsets of players and the emergence of advanced analytics. This has led to a more free-flowing game in which traditional positions and play calls have been replaced with player archetypes and read-and-react offensives that operate off a variety of isolated actions. The introduction of position tracking technology by SportVU has aided the analysis of these patterns by offering a vast dataset of on-court behavior. There have been numerous attempts to identify and classify patterns by evaluating the outcomes of offensive and defensive strategies associated with actions within this dataset, a job currently done manually by reviewing game tape. Some of these classification attempts have used supervised techniques that begin with labeled sets of plays and feature sets to automate the detection of future cases. Increasingly, however, deep learning approaches such as convolutional neural networks have been used in conjunction with player trajectory images generated from positional data. This enables classification to occur in a bottom-up manner, potentially discerning unexpected patterns. Others have shifted focus from classification, instead using this positional data to evaluate the success of a given possession based on spatial factors such as defender proximity and player factors such as role or skillset. While play/action detection, classification and analysis have each been addressed in literature, a comprehensive approach that accounts for modern trends is still lacking. In this paper, we discuss various approaches to action detection and analysis and ultimately propose an outline for a deep learning approach of identification and analysis resulting in a queryable dataset complete with shot evaluations, thus combining multiple contributions into a serviceable tool capable of assisting and automating much of the work currently done by NBA professionals.