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Do NBA teams avoid trading within their own division?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 September 2023

jimi adams Open the ORCID record for jimi adams [Opens in a new window]  and
Michał Bojanowski Open the ORCID record for Michał Bojanowski [Opens in a new window]
jimi adams*
Affiliation:
University of Colorado Denver, Denver, CO, USA
Michał Bojanowski
Affiliation:
Autonomous University of Barcelona, Bellaterra (Barcelona), Spain Kozminski University, Warsaw, Poland
*
Corresponding author: jimi adams; Email: jimi.adams@ucdenver.edu
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Abstract

Within US professional sports, trades within one’s own division are often perceived to be disadvantageous. We ask how common this practice is. To examine this question, we construct a date-stamped network of all trades in the National Basketball Association between June 1976 and May 2019. We then use season-specific weighted exponential random graph models to estimate the likelihood of teams avoiding within-division trade partners, and how consistent that pattern is across the observed period. In addition to the empirical question, this analysis serves to demonstrate the necessity and difficulty of constructing the proper baseline for statistical comparison. We find limited-to-no support for the popular perception.

Keywords

Trade networksNBAsportsexponential-family random graph modelsweighted networks
Type
Research Article
Information
Network Science , Volume 11 , Issue 4 , December 2023 , pp. 657 - 669
Copyright
© The Author(s), 2023. Published by Cambridge University Press

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Footnotes

Action Editor: Ulrik Brandes

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