NBA GM's on Acquiring Players

Source: NBA

The economic principle I’m exploring is Because of scarcity, people choose. All choices have an opportunity cost. My research question to help me study the economic principle is how do NBA owners make decisions to acquire players? Alex Kennedy, writer for HoopsHype talks all about how teams need to consider how a player fits on a team, the timing, and having the right mix of players for the limited spots on a team in his article This is How NBA Trades Go Down. 

First, the player that is intended to be traded for must be a good fit for the team, and the player being released in the trade must be a bad fit. Some big factors that GMs look at is if a player can help team chemistry, if he’s a leader, someone who is on the rise and had solid growth, someone who adds more value to the team, and if the player just has well rounded talent.

Second, GMs have a scarcity of time. There is a trade deadline that all trades must occur before the given date. So, in order to meet this deadline, GMs must manage their time efficiently and if they don’t act early on a trade, it may not go through due to time. Anthony Davis, superstar on the New Orleans Pelicans wanted out of New Orleans. However, the GMs didn’t make a move soon enough, missing the trade deadline. Their time management was not good, so their opportunity cost of getting better players on their team did not happen.


Third, All NBA teams have limited roster spots. So, GMs must make decisions wisely to fill the roster spots effectively. If a team is short on players, they can perform a two for one or even a three for one trade. This means trading one player for more than one player. Filling the roster to 15 is huge because the basketball season is very long and usually multiple players get hurt. Teams have a scarcity of roster spots available, so in order to maximize these spots, trades are crucial. In my next blog post I will research the question: how do NBA owners make decisions to acquire players?

In my next blog, I will further talk about NBA GM's on aquiring players