Monday, October 4, 2010

Who will be worse next year: LeBron, Wade or Bosh?

Given that I have been talking in Sports Economics about NBA team and player productivity, I thought now would be a good time to ask the question that no one else seems interested in: Who will be worse (in terms of productivity) this coming season: LeBron, Wade or Chris?

While it is a given that the expected team production with these three productive players will increase (compared to last season) for the Miami Heat, what is also expected is that the productivity of one (or more) of these three players will decrease. Why? The law of diminishing marginal productivity, which says that as you add more and more inputs, that eventually the change in output must start to decline when faced with some type of constraint.

Hence, as you add more and more very productive players, eventually given the constraint that a team can only win 82 games in the regular season, one of these players will decline in terms of marginal productivity. Who will it be?

No comments: