This past week I was elected President of the North American Association of Sports Economists (I will be the third president in the history of this organization, following Dennis Coates and Brad Humphreys). 

NAASE was founded in 2007 in an effort to further advance the field of sports economics.  Part of this effort is directed towards other economists.  Just like other academics, much of what we say in sports economics is intended as part of a larger conversation with our fellow economists.

Sports economics, though, is different from many other fields in economics.  As the following blogs illustrate, non-economists are often very interested in the research findings offered in our field.

Sabernomics

The Sports Economist

Sports Labor Relations

International Journal of Sport Finance Blog

Given this interest, I thought I would discuss how one can join NAASE.  We would certainly encourage any economist with an interest in sports to join our organization.  And you don’t have to live and work in North America to qualify.  A number of economists from outside North American have already joined.

In addition to encouraging all economists to join, we would also encourage non-economists to join NAASE. As is the case with the American Economic Association, membership in NAASE is open to non-academics.  So if you are interested in sports economics research you are invited to become an NAASE member.

Here are the membership details.  Membership costs $50 per year.  For this membership one receives an entire year of the Journal of Sports Economics (JSE costs $30 while membership is technically just $20 per year).  JSE is the first academic journal in the field of sports economics. Like many academic journals, the per-issue cost can be quite high.  According to Sage (the company that publishes JSE), one issue of JSE costs $22.  So if one was to purchase a year of JSE – or six issues – one would be paying $132.  Membership in JSE reduces that price substantially.

Six issues of JSE in 2008 contained – by my count – 37 original articles (and 670 pages of content).  So if you look at the cost per article, membership in NAASE results in a cost of less than $1 per article.  Again, quite a bargain (by academic standards). One should note that academic journals do not pay authors (and NAASE doesn’t pay its President either).  So the money you pay to the JSE does not end up with the authors who publish in the journal (I am not sure where the money goes, but I can assure you it doesn’t go to the researchers).

Once again, the NAASE was founded to promote work in sports economics.  Part of that work is to bring the research in the field to a wider audience.  So if you are interested in seeing this work (and not just the less rigorous stuff found in this forum) then I would encourage you to join by following the link below:

Membership in the North American Association of Sports Economists

Update: I forgot to mention that student membership is $40.  So students get a 20% discount.

- DJ

The WoW Journal Comments Policy

Last week I attended the Western Economic Association meetings in Vancouver.  The North American Association of Sports Economists (via the efforts of Brad Humphreys, Tony Krautmann, and myself) organized fifteen sessions – consisting of more than 50 papers – on various topics within the field of sports economics.

On June 29^th I flew into Vancouver, and along the way (while sitting in DIA) I wrote Detroit Refuses Rondo?  The meeting was held at the Sheraton Wall Centre in Vancouver and it took me a couple of days to figure out where I could get wireless access in the hotel (it was not available in my room).  While I was out of touch, though, this short post on Rajon Rondo attracted quite a few comments.  At this point, most of these I still have not read (hopefully no one has said anything that is overly offensive).  Although I didn’t find time to read these comments, I did squeeze out a little bit of time to post a short comment on Detroit’s signing of Ben Gordon and Charlie Villanueva.  

Now I am back in Cedar City.  It was my intention to post a longer comment on what was learned at these meetings, but I think that is going to have to wait until later in the week.  For now I want to offer a brief comment on the following table:

Table One: Comparing Ron Artest and Trevor Ariza

Essentially the Houston Rockets and LA Lakers have swapped these two small forwards.  The consensus seems to be that this move strengthens the Lakers.  Although I don’t think this move severely harms LA, I don’t see how it helps.  As Table One reports, last season Ariza was a more efficient scorer, was better at grabbing rebounds and steals, and was less likely to commit turnovers.  When we look at the past three seasons of Wins Produced and WP48 [Wins Produced per 48 minutes] we see the following:

Trevor Ariza:

2008-09: 8.0 Wins Produced, 0.192 WP48

2007-08: 2.6 Wins Produced, 0.225 WP48

2006-07: 5.8 Wins Produced, 0.217 WP48

Ron Artest:

2008-09: 4.2 Wins Produced, 0.083 WP48

2007-08: 4.5 Wins Produced, 0.100 WP48

2006-07: 8.9 Wins Produced, 0.161 WP48

The 2006-07 season was Artest’s most productive season [in terms of WP48].  Artest will turn 30 in November, so it seems unlikely that he is going to return to this peak.  Even if he did, Ariza has already surpassed this peak on three occasions.  Furthermore, Ariza is younger and apparently less prone to cause his organization distress.  So if this was a trade, it looks like the Rockets have come out ahead. 

Unfortunately, the standings might not tell this story at the end of the 2009-10 season.  The Rockets will probably struggle somewhat without Yao Ming.  And the Lakers will still be very good.  So it might appear that the conventional wisdom on this move will look okay.  But if we take the time to look past scoring, and separate a player from his teammates, the Rockets with Ariza look better today.  And that should still be the story in 2010.

Let me close by noting that July 8^th is a big day in the NBA and there should be plenty of news.  But I am going to try and ignore these events and focus my next post on last week’s meetings and all that we learned in Vancouver.  That post, though, is going to have to wait until I catch-up at the office.

- DJ

The WoW Journal Comments Policy

Our research on the NBA was summarized HERE.

The Technical Notes at wagesofwins.com provides substantially more information on the published research behind Wins Produced and Win Score

Wins Produced, Win Score, and PAWSmin are also discussed in the following posts:

Simple Models of Player Performance

Wins Produced vs. Win Score

What Wins Produced Says and What It Does Not Say

Introducing PAWSmin — and a Defense of Box Score Statistics

Finally, A Guide to Evaluating Models contains useful hints on how to interpret and evaluate statistical models.

For reasons I will touch upon in my next post, this has been a busy week.  So busy that I have actually been out of touch with this forum and hence I am quite surprised to see more than 100 comments on my last post.  At this point, many of these are unread. But I did read enough to get a sense that some people (although perhaps not many) are interested in some comment on the Detroit’s recent acquisitions.

The story of these acquisitions begins last fall. Joe Dumars decided very early in the 2008-09 season that the Pistons – as constructed in October of 2008 — were not going to win the NBA title in 2009.  Having reached that conclusion, Dumars traded Chauncey Billups to the Denver Nuggets for Allen Iverson.  At the time Dumars argued that Iverson would help.  I disagreed, and even argued that Dumars might also think that Iverson would probably not help the Pistons win another title in 2009.  And I went on to argue that Dumars was really motivated to trade Billups by the fact Iverson’s contract expired in 2009 and thus the Pistons would have substantial cap room this summer.

Although we could debate motivations, it’s now clear the results met expectations.

• The Pistons – with Iverson – struggled and barely made the playoffs. 
• And the Pistons entered the off-season with substantial cap room.

Within moments of the start of the free agent signing period – as PistonPowered argues — much of this cap room vanished.  And in its place the Pistons had acquired the services of Ben Gordon and Charlie Villanueva. 

As a person who follows the Pistons, here is my initial reaction: Ugh!!! 

When we look at Wins Produced we can understand the lack of enthusiasm for these signings.  Here is what Ben Gordon has done across the first five years of his career:

Gordon’s Wins Produced = 15.3

Gordon’s WP48 [Wins Produced per 48 minutes] = 0.059

And here is what Villanueva has done across his first four seasons:

Villanueva’s Wins Produced = 11.2

Villanueva’s WP48 = 0.074

An average player posts a 0.100 WP48, so each player is posting a career mark that is below average. Now when we look at 2008-09 we see numbers that are much closer to average. That being said, each player is now being paid like an above average player (in fact, Gordon is getting more than $10 million per season).   And I don’t think all the numbers support this position.

Of course, if all we focus upon is scoring, then Gordon and Villanueva are above average players.  But once we move past scoring we see that Gordon was below average last season with respect to rebounds, steals, turnovers, blocked shots, and assists.  And Villanueva was below average with respect to steals, turnovers, and personal fouls (and not really far above average with respect to anything else).

In sum, it looks like the Pistons have traded away valuable cap space for two players who are not going to take this team to a championship.  As I noted a few posts ago, it seems clear that an NBA champion needs a player who posts a WP48 in excess of 0.200.  At this moment, though, the Pistons do not have a player on the roster that has surpassed this mark.  Now Antonio McDyess did post a mark in excess of 0.200 last year, but…

• McDyess is currently unsigned.
• and he will be 35 next season. 

So even if McDyess comes back, he will be very old by NBA standards and therefore he is not likely to be the key player on a future NBA title team.

Once again, it looks like these two moves are not going to produce a title in Detroit in 2010.  And given the length of the contracts, it doesn’t look like the first part of the next decade looks promising either.

By the way, had I checked earlier I might have put the Pistons aside and spent this post on the relative merits of Trevor Ariza and Ron Artest.  I guess that post will have to wait for later.

- DJ

The WoW Journal Comments Policy

Our research on the NBA was summarized HERE.

The Technical Notes at wagesofwins.com provides substantially more information on the published research behind Wins Produced and Win Score

Wins Produced, Win Score, and PAWSmin are also discussed in the following posts:

Simple Models of Player Performance

Wins Produced vs. Win Score

What Wins Produced Says and What It Does Not Say

Introducing PAWSmin — and a Defense of Box Score Statistics

Finally, A Guide to Evaluating Models contains useful hints on how to interpret and evaluate statistical models.