Analysis of Performance Measures That Affect NBA Salaries

Abstract: This thesis investigates which factors that affect the salary for basketball players in the NBA and if the salary cap has achieved its purpose. The data for this project was collected from basketball-reference.com and consisted of performance measures from season 2015/2016 and salaries from the beginning of the season 2016/2017. The study was performed by using multiple linear regression analysis in the software R and the data was handled in Excel. The results from the regression indicates that position point guard, if the player has played in D-league or not,Age, Offensive rebounds, Assists, Steals, Two point attempts, Three point attempts, Free throw attempts, Field goal percentage, Usage percentage and Defensive rating are the main factors that affect the salary. The performance measures that had the greatest were two and three point attempts. The regression model achieved an explanatory level of 57:4%. In complementary to analyze if the salary cap has achieved its purpose, a literature analysis was used and showed that the salary cap systems in North America are neither accurately designed nor do they satisfy the intentions of what they were set to achieve.