The Steve Nash Paper

I love basketball. As an attorney, I handle discrimination claims. What do these two things have in common? Well, some researchers just answered that question:

Using data from the National Basketball Association (NBA), we examine whether patterns of workplace cooperation occur disproportionately among workers of the same race. We find that, holding constant the composition of teammates on the floor, basketball players are no more likely to complete an assist to a player of the same race than a player of a different race. Our confidence interval allows us to reject even small amounts of same-race bias in passing patterns. Our findings suggest that high levels of interracial cooperation can occur in a setting where workers are operating in a highly visible setting with strong incentives to behave efficiently.

http://www.nber.org/papers/w14749

In other words, it's the Larry Bird/John Stockton/Steve Nash paper. But was there enough of a sample size to create credible results? Other than Steve Nash, Kevin Love, Kyle Korver, and the Gasol brothers, who else would they have covered? Surprisingly, The Arsenalist--a site named after the popular soccer team--answers my question (click on "The Arsenalist"). I can't believe I left out AK-47.

Speaking of interracial cooperation, here is a post featuring a must-see link--it leads to a video featuring "twins" Steve Nash and Baron Davis. Enjoy.

Credit goes to Marginal Revolution for the NBER paper link.