Determining the Players' Efficiency in NBA: Some Economic and Managerial Results

Abstract

Player efficiency is estimated by using Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) and data of 401 players in NBA at 2006 in this study. Three approaches are generally used when measuring the efficiency of basketball players. In the first, which is frequently used in the literature, a variety of payments and fees are used as inputs. The second is used by basketball associations that correspond closely to the theoretical definition of efficiency because it tries to measure players' contribution to their team by using games statistics. The third which includes different type of approaches is used in the literature and takes into account games statistics like previous one. In this study, however, an alternative approach is used. It is different from the first method in that it measures the success of the players within the game, and it is also different of the second and third method because of the approach. According to results, there are differences between the ranking of the players obtained using the NBA system and the approach recommended in this study.