Abstract
On October 21, 2021, the National Basketball Association (NBA) announced its 75th season’s anniversary team to commemorate the 75 greatest NBA players of all-time. The NBA compiled a group of writers, NBA executives, current and former players to create the list. However, it is unclear what metrics, standards, or views the voters used to develop their respective lists. Using open-source information from basketballreference.com and the NBA’s official website, we created an original dataset with 26 variables normalized via z scores for the 145 players who have made at least three All-Star games after the NBA-ABA merger between the 1976-77 and 2022-23 seasons to examine three questions: Who are the top 50 players since the NBA-ABA merger? What statistics, awards, and accolades separate the top 50 players post NBA-ABA merger? What are the minimum thresholds in the key career accomplishments that separate the top 10 players? To answer the questions, we use a multistep process. We acknowledge three types of NBA greatness: regular season, playoff, and overall (regular season and playoffs combined). We create a dichotomous quantitative metric to define each type of greatness. We use the 145 players’ observable characteristics as predictors in a regression model to determine what combination of characteristics impacts the specific type of greatness. We fit the values from the regression model to each player’s profile to obtain a score for each player in each model. We combine each player’s scores across the three models to determine a comprehensive greatness score for each player.
Presenters
Nathan E. DialPilot and Researcher, Department of Defense, US Air Force, Nebraska, United States Robert Konoff
Experienced Strategy Consulting Associate, Customer Service, Strategy&, part of the PwC Network, IL, United States
Details
Presentation Type
Theme
Sports Management and Commercialization
KEYWORDS
NBA, Greatness, Linear, Regression, Variance, Inflation, Factor, Z Score Normalization
Digital Media
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