This article provides estimates of differences in game play between the WNBA and NBA. Game outcome measures that are absolute (win or loss) and relative (ratio of final points) both reveal differential impacts of relative characteristics of play (ratio of shooting percentages, rebounding, assists, turnovers, personal fouls, and differences in steals and blocked shots). A stochastic frontier model is estimated and used to generate (relative) efficiency measures of play that further reveal differences between the two leagues.
Aigner, D., Lovell, C. A. K., & Schmidt, P. (1977). Formulation and estimation of stochastic frontier production function models. Journal of Econometrics, 6(1), 21-37.
2.
Berri, D. J. (1999). Who is “most valuable”? Measuring the player’s production of wins in the National Basketball Association. Managerial & Decision Economics, 20(8), 411-427.
3.
Carmichael, F., & Thomas, D. (1995). Production and efficiency in team sports: An investigation of rugby league football. Applied Economics, 27(9), 859-869.
4.
Carmichael, F., Thomas, D., & Ward, R. (2001). Production and efficiency in association football. Journal of Sports Economics, 2(3), 228-243.
5.
Caudill, S. B., Ford, J. M., & Gropper, D. M. (1995). Frontier estimation and firm-specific inefficiency measures in the presence of heteroscedasticity. Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, 13(1), 105-111.
6.
Chatterjee, S., Campbell, M. R., & Wiseman, F. (1994). Take that jam! An analysis of winning percentage for NBA teams. Managerial & Decision Economics, 15(5), 521-535.
7.
Cowing, T., Reifschneider, D., & Stevenson, R. (1983). A comparison of alternative frontier cost function specifications. In A. Dogramaci (Ed.), Development in econometric analysis of productivity (pp. [pp. 63-91). Boston: Kluwer-Nijhoff.
8.
Hadley, L., Poitras, M., Ruggiero, J., & Knowles, S. (2000). Performance evaluation of National Football League teams. Managerial & Decision Economics, 21(2), 63-70.
9.
Hofler, R. A., & Payne, J. E. (1996). How close to their offensive potential do National Football League teams play?Applied Economics Letters, 3(11), 743-747.
10.
Hofler, R. A., & Payne, J. E. (1997). Measuring efficiency in the National Basketball Association. Economics Letters, 55(2), 293-299.
11.
Hofler, R. A., & Payne, J. E. (2001). Efficiency in the National Basketball Association: A stochastic frontier approach with panel data. Working paper.
12.
Jondrow, J., Lovell, K., Materov, I., & Schmidt, P. (1982). On the estimation of technical efficiency in the stochastic frontier production model. Journal of Econometrics, 19(2-3), 233-238.
13.
Last, J. V. (2002, May 10). Why white (and other) women can’t jump. The Weekly Standard. Retrieved from http://www.weeklystandard.com/content/Public/Articles/000/000/001/200ofapa.asp
14.
Mazur, M. J. (1994). Evaluating the relative efficiency of baseball players. In A. Charneset al. (Eds.), Data envelopment analysis: Theory, methodology, and application (pp. 369-391). Dordrecht, the Netherlands: Kluwer Academic.
15.
Meeusen, W., & van den Broeck, J. (1977). Efficiency estimation from Cobb-Douglas production functions with composed error. International Economic Review, 18(2), 435-444.
16.
Ondrich, J., & Ruggiero, J. (2001). Efficiency measurement in the stochastic frontier model. European Journal of Operational Research, 129, 434-442.
17.
Ruggiero, J., Hadley, L., & Gustafson, E. (1996). Technical efficiency in Major League Baseball. In J. Fizel, E. Gustafson, & L. Hadley (Eds.), Baseball economics: Current research (pp. 191-200). Westport, CT: Greenwood, Praeger.
18.
Ruggiero, J., Hadley, L., Ruggiero, G., & Knowles, S. (1997). A note on the Pythagorean theorem of baseball production. Managerial and Decision Economics, 18(4), 335-342.
19.
Zak, T. A., Huang, C. J., & Siegfried, J. J. (1979). Production efficiency: The case of professional basketball. Journal of Business, 5(3), 379-392.