IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0237920.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Measuring individual worker output in a complementary team setting: Does regularized adjusted plus minus isolate individual NBA player contributions?

Author

Listed:
  • Shankar Ghimire
  • Justin A Ehrlich
  • Shane D Sanders

Abstract

Adjusted plus minus (APM) measures have redefined our understanding of player value in basketball and hockey, where both are team games featuring player productivity spillovers. APM measures use seasonal play-by-play data to estimate individual player contributions. If a team's overall score margin success is figuratively represented by a pie, APM measures are well-designed to slice the pie and attribute individual contributions accordingly. However, they do not account for the possibility that better players can increase the overall size of the pie and thus increase the size of the slice (overall APM value) for teammates. Herein, we use data from NBA player-season Real Plus Minus (RPM)—a leading APM measure—for all recorded player-seasons from 2013–19 and player lineup data to test whether RPM is related to teammate quality. We run sets of linear fixed effect regression models to explain variation in RPM across player-seasons. We also employ a two-stage least square (2-SLS) method for robustness check. Both empirical approaches address potential endogeneity in the relationship of interest. We find strong evidence that RPM is related to on-court teammate quality. Despite adjusting for teammate and opponent quality, RPM does not control for complementarity effects. As such, RPM is not suited for out-of-sample prediction.

Suggested Citation

  • Shankar Ghimire & Justin A Ehrlich & Shane D Sanders, 2020. "Measuring individual worker output in a complementary team setting: Does regularized adjusted plus minus isolate individual NBA player contributions?," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(8), pages 1-11, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0237920
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0237920
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0237920
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0237920&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0237920?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Macdonald Brian, 2011. "A Regression-Based Adjusted Plus-Minus Statistic for NHL Players," Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, De Gruyter, vol. 7(3), pages 1-31, July.
    2. Ehrlich Justin & Sanders Shane & Boudreaux Christopher J., 2019. "The relative wages of offense and defense in the NBA: a setting for win-maximization arbitrage?," Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, De Gruyter, vol. 15(3), pages 213-224, September.
    3. Horrace, William C. & Liu, Xiaodong & Patacchini, Eleonora, 2016. "Endogenous network production functions with selectivity," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 190(2), pages 222-232.
    4. Hansen, Henrik & Tarp, Finn, 2001. "Aid and growth regressions," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 64(2), pages 547-570, April.
    5. Macdonald Brian, 2012. "Adjusted Plus-Minus for NHL Players using Ridge Regression with Goals, Shots, Fenwick, and Corsi," Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, De Gruyter, vol. 8(3), pages 1-24, October.
    6. Fearnhead Paul & Taylor Benjamin Matthew, 2011. "On Estimating the Ability of NBA Players," Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, De Gruyter, vol. 7(3), pages 1-18, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Shane Sanders & Joel Potter & Justin Ehrlich & Justin Perline & Christopher Boudreaux, 2021. "Informed voters and electoral outcomes: a natural experiment stemming from a fundamental information-technological shift," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 189(1), pages 257-277, October.
    2. Ashby, Nathan J. & Ramos, Miguel A., 2023. "Productivity within groups: An analysis of shirking in high school cross country competitions," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 106(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Macdonald Brian, 2012. "Adjusted Plus-Minus for NHL Players using Ridge Regression with Goals, Shots, Fenwick, and Corsi," Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, De Gruyter, vol. 8(3), pages 1-24, October.
    2. Kharrat, Tarak & McHale, Ian G. & Peña, Javier López, 2020. "Plus–minus player ratings for soccer," European Journal of Operational Research, Elsevier, vol. 283(2), pages 726-736.
    3. Ehrlich Justin & Sanders Shane & Boudreaux Christopher J., 2019. "The relative wages of offense and defense in the NBA: a setting for win-maximization arbitrage?," Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports, De Gruyter, vol. 15(3), pages 213-224, September.
    4. Lim, Alejandro & Chiang, Chin-Tsang & Teng, Jen-Chieh, 2021. "Estimating robot strengths with application to selection of alliance members in FIRST robotics competitions," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 158(C).
    5. Guillaumont, Patrick & Guillaumont Jeanneney, Sylviane & Wagner, Laurent, 2017. "How to Take into Account Vulnerability in Aid Allocation Criteria and Lack of Human Capital as Well: Improving the Performance Based Allocation," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 27-40.
    6. Awudu Abdulai, 2023. "Information acquisition and the adoption of improved crop varieties," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 105(4), pages 1049-1062, August.
    7. Patrick Guillaumont, 2011. "Aid effectiveness for poverty reduction:macroeconomic overview and emerging issues," CERDI Working papers halshs-00554285, HAL.
    8. Kelbesa Megersa & Danny Cassimon, 2015. "Public Debt, Economic Growth, and Public Sector Management in Developing Countries: Is There a Link?," Public Administration & Development, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 35(5), pages 329-346, December.
    9. Juliana Yael Milovich, 2018. "Does Aid Reduce Poverty?," OPHI Working Papers ophiwp122.pdf, Queen Elizabeth House, University of Oxford.
    10. Monica Beuran & Gaël Raballand & Julio Revilla, 2011. "Improving Aid Effectiveness in Aid-Dependent Countries: Lessons from Zambia," Documents de travail du Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne 11040, Université Panthéon-Sorbonne (Paris 1), Centre d'Economie de la Sorbonne.
    11. Nimonka Bayale, 2018. "Aide et Croissance dans les pays de l’Union Economique et Monétaire Ouest Africaine (UEMOA) : retour sur une relation controversée," Working Papers hal-01765313, HAL.
    12. Roberto Burguet & Marcelo Soto, 2011. "Seeds of hope: Assessing the effect of development aid on the reduction of child mortality," UFAE and IAE Working Papers 890.11, Unitat de Fonaments de l'Anàlisi Econòmica (UAB) and Institut d'Anàlisi Econòmica (CSIC).
    13. Dalgaard, Carl-Johan & Erickson, Lennart, 2009. "Reasonable Expectations and the First Millennium Development Goal: How Much Can Aid Achieve?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 37(7), pages 1170-1181, July.
    14. Paul Collier & Anke Hoeffler, 2002. "AID, Policy and Peace: Reducing the risks of civil conflict," Defence and Peace Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 13(6), pages 435-450.
    15. Balázs Szent-Iványi, 2015. "Are Democratising Countries Rewarded with Higher Levels of Foreign Aid?," Acta Oeconomica, Akadémiai Kiadó, Hungary, vol. 65(4), pages 593-615, December.
    16. Eifert, Benn & Gelb, Alan, 2008. "Reforming Aid: Toward More Predictable, Performance-Based Financing for Development," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 36(10), pages 2067-2081, October.
    17. Workneh, Migbaru Alamirew & Francken, Nathalie, 2015. "A review of the impact of foreign aid on domestic saving," MPRA Paper 92174, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 13 Feb 2019.
    18. Kimura, Hidemi & Mori, Yuko & Sawada, Yasuyuki, 2012. "Aid Proliferation and Economic Growth: A Cross-Country Analysis," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 1-10.
    19. Stéphane Pallage & Michel A. Robe, 2001. "Foreign Aid and the Business Cycle," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 9(4), pages 641-672, November.
    20. Gauri Kartini Shastry & Daniel L Tortorice, 2021. "Effective Foreign Aid: Evidence from Gavi’s Vaccine Program," Working Papers 2102, College of the Holy Cross, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0237920. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.