Relative Age Effect and Birthplace Effect in NBA Drafted Players

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2021-07-23
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This historical analysis aims to evaluate (1) the presence of relative age effects for the draft players in the National Basketball Association (NBA); (2) the presence of birthplace effects for the draft players; (3) the relationship between the draft order of players and their career performance; (4) the relationship between the relative age of draft players and their career performance; and (5) the relationship between the birth place of draft players and their career performance. To fulfilled that, we involved 1391 USA players and 237 European players in the most recent 30-years (1990–2019) of NBA drafts, firstly chi-square test was chosen to examine the existence of RAE and Birthplace Effect, secondly the USA player and European players were classified into three clusters according to their career performance, Kruskal-Wallis H test was conducted to determine the distribution of performance groups across different categories of the relative age, the birthplace and selection order. The results showed that the RAE and Birthplace Effect existed in the drafted USA players and drafted European players in NBA, and the RAEs for USA players changed to grander overtimes. The proportion of USA players born in medium cities of 5,000-999,999 and very small cities (< 50,000) are over-represented; the proportion of USA players from very large cities (> 50,000,000) are mismatch the larger scale of big city inhabitants of USA; European athletes born in cities with populations of 2,500,000- 4,999,999 and 100,000-249,999 have a higher chance of becoming a draft player, particularly in cities with populations of 50,000-99,999, whereas European athletes born in very small cities (5,000,000) have a lower chance of becoming NBA draft players. There are no relationships between the relative age, birthplace and career performance of players, while higher draft pick order is relative to better career performance of players were investigated. Those findings provide support for the sport- and culture-specific explanation that basketball should be carefully considered when analyzing the RAE and the Birthplace Effect. In addition, the different progressive systems of basketball in the USA and Europe should also be taken into consideration.
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Master’s Thesis International M.Sc. in Performance Analysis of Sport (IMPAS)
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RAE , Birthplace Effect
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