FiT Publishing

This research investigates player career performance compared to their National Hockey League (NHL) draft position as it relates to nepotism and physical/human capital transfer. After identifying family members of former players, we analyze their performance compared to others using a sample of over 1100 players from the 2005‒2010 drafts. We find no evidence of nepotism as it relates to sons in relation to earnings and only slight possible evidence in terms of reaching a low minimum games-played threshold. Although sons appear to be drafted appropriately, players with NHL siblings appear...Read more

The Women’s National Basketball Association (WNBA) utilizes a version of the reverse-order draft lottery similar to the NBA. While previous research has examined factors impacting the draft picks and subsequent professional performance in the NBA,1 we do not believe this subject has been explored for the WNBA. In fact, little has been published on this league. This particular study will build upon the work of Berri and Krautmann (2013), which presented a model of player performance for the WNBA. This work will be paired with the approach to the NBA draft introduced by Berri, Brook, and...Read more

This paper uses data on players drafted in 1987 through 1989 covering both their collegiate and their professional careers. This time period is chosen because we wanted recent players whose playing days have ended. Our analysis evaluates the role of college productivity on draft position and the relationship between college career productivity, measured by individual performance statistics and as productivity indexes, with professional career productivity measured similarly and with the length of the career. At issue is the effectiveness of NBA executives in identifying college players who...Read more