Research on the Influencing Factors of NBA Players’ Salaries

Abstract

Currently, most of the studies are discussing the imbalance of NBA salaries, and only a few will actually take a closer look at what aspects of a player's capability can significantly affect their salary, which is what would be mainly discussed in this report. For NBA this mature business league, earning high salaries is the common goal of all players. However, due to the limitations such as the NBA salary cap, each team is limited in the total amount of salary they can allocate to their players. For team owners, determining a player’s value through scoring, defenses, and shooting percentage is vital. Players, need to learn what they can do to earn more, such as improving their defensive efficiency or grabbing more rebounds. Each team needs different types of players, such as three-point shooters, organizers, or players who own leadership. Next season, the salary cap for NBA teams will be around $123 million and each team will have around 13 players. Team management will need to evaluate the value of every individual. For example, they will evaluate a three-point shooter in terms of three-point percentage, percentage of shots taken, number of threes per game, etc. The main purpose of this paper is to analyze the potential reasons for the income distribution of the league, which is conducive to enhancing the understanding of the pattern for the player side, and help the owners to take advantage of it, and better allocate their resources.