Submission Date

7-18-2025

Document Type

Paper

Department

Business & Economics

Faculty Mentor

Rudolph Henkel

Comments

Presented during the 27th Annual Summer Fellows Symposium, July 18, 2025 at Ursinus College.

Project Description

The NBA is known for being the premier basketball league. However, are the allegedly best minds in the sport choosing salaries in a way that contributes to success? Our research extrapolates trends between team equity and win rates. We use Gini coefficients to establish team equities across the league between the 2011-2012 and 2024-2025 seasons. Our research establishes a relationship between team equity and win rates. This suggests that more equitable teams, in relation to held constant variables like All-NBA selections, may be more successful compared to other teams. We speculate on the reasons for this effect, including the possibility that middle-upper class players (those just below the superstar caliber players) may be overpaid. We use historical data to inform a predictive model with our most important variable, Gini coefficient, being a novel addition to existing predictive models. Additional models look at the effect of previous win rates and previous all-rookie players on the current win rates.

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