Who Survives When the Team Wins?: The Interaction Effect of Team Winning Percentage and Skin Tone

• In Event: Race, Gender, and Class Roundtables Session
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): 11) Racism, Punishment, and Sports

Abstract

This study investigates whether organizational slack, represented by a team’s winning percentage, interacts with a player’s skin tone to affect their probability of league exit in the National Basketball Association (NBA). While the NBA is widely perceived as a strictly objective meritocracy, this research focuses on "bench warmers" (Player Efficiency Rating 15), a group whose performance evaluations are highly ambiguous and who are theoretically most vulnerable to statistical discrimination. Using a player-season panel dataset from 2009 to 2019 comprising 1,300 players, the study employs a facial landmark detection algorithm (dlib) to measure skin tone as a continuous variable. Logistic regression results reveal that while team performance impacts the survival of starters and bench players in diametrically opposed directions, the hypothesized interaction effect between skin tone and team winning percentage is not statistically significant. Instead, the retention of marginal players is overwhelmingly determined by strict meritocratic variables, specifically objective performance contributions (Win Shares) and age. The findings reject the performance pressure hypothesis within this context, demonstrating that the modern NBA labor market evaluates even its most vulnerable players through a highly rationalized, productivity-based meritocracy, leaving little room for racial bias during the retention phase.

Author

• Habeen Lim, Yonsei University