Submission Date
5-4-2026
Document Type
Paper
Department
Business & Economics
Adviser
Rudolph Henkel
Committee Member
Scott King
Committee Member
Brent Mattingly
Department Chair
Jennifer VanGilder
Project Description
This paper examines whether NBA draft decisions can be better explained by incorporating non-geometric time discounting into a model of general manager decision making. Using a dataset of 285 NBA draft prospects over a 12-year period, the impact of college statistics on Value Over Replacement Player (VORP) is determined, and these impact values are then used to create a “predicted” VORP for the first 4 seasons of each player’s career: a projection of what a general manager might think of a prospect’s future value given their college statistics. Following this, geometric and hyperbolic time discounting models are applied to estimate a present value of the players, and from that a simulated draft order. Ultimately, no statistical difference is found between the prediction of hyperbolic and geometric discounting. Secondary results provide evidence that the predictability of player future value may be extremely low.
Recommended Citation
Plante, Alec R., "The Impatience of Winning: An Analysis of Time Discounting, Predictive Modeling, and the NBA Draft" (2026). Business and Economics Honors Papers. 68.
https://digitalcommons.ursinus.edu/bus_econ_hon/68
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