Will he stay or will he go? How monetary and non-monetary variables affect the NBA free agents decision making

Abstract

Different factors influence the National Basketball Association (NBA) players on deciding to sign a contract during the free agency. Top players have more power of choice during this period and are expected to have more options to choose from it. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the relationship between monetary (salary and state income taxes) and non-monetary (states human development index (HDI) and team performance) variables on the decision made by NBA free agents, according to their salary. We employed scatter plots, scatter tables, alluvial plot, and correspondence analysis to verify the relationship between the variables of 595 players that signed a contract with any of the 30 NBA franchises between the start of the 2015/16 season to the beginning of the 2019/20 season. Results indicated that there is not a predominant variable that dictates where a player will sign. The results also indicated a tendency for top players to take off-court variables (team market value and state HDI) more into consideration than on-court variables (salary and team performance). However, there is not an advantage of monetary or non-monetary variables in the players? decision.