A note on the ‘Linsanity’ of measuring the relative efficiency of National Basketball Association guards

Abstract

This note examines the productive efficiency of 62 starting guards during the 2011/12 National Basketball Association (NBA) season. This period coincides with the phenomenal and largely unanticipated performance of New York Knicks’ starting point guard Jeremy Lin and the attendant public and media hype known as Linsanity. We employ a data envelopment analysis (DEA) approach that includes allowance for an undesirable output, here turnovers per game, with the desirable outputs of points, rebounds, assists, steals and blocks per game and an input of minutes per game. The results indicate that depending upon the specification, between 29% and 42% of NBA guards are fully efficient, including Jeremy Lin, with a mean inefficiency of 3.7% and 19.2%. However, while Jeremy Lin is technically efficient, he seldom serves as a benchmark for inefficient players, at least when compared with established players such as Chris Paul and Dwayne Wade. This suggests the uniqueness of Jeremy Lin's productive solution and may explain why his unique style of play, encompassing individual brilliance, unselfish play and team leadership, is of such broad public appeal.

Keywords:

• data envelopment analysis
• technical efficiency
• basketball players
• undesirable output
• National Basketball Association

JEL Classification:

• D19
• C61
• C61
• M59
• L83

Notes

1 The PER sums up all a player's positive accomplishments, subtracts the negative accomplishments, and returns a per-minute rating of a player's performance.