A Log-Linear Analysis of Efficiency in Wheelchair Basketball According to Player Classification

Abstract

Within the framework of observational methodology, we conducted a log-linear analysis to study efficiency in relation to players’ functional ability in wheelchair basketball by analyzing associations between the position of the last pass before a shot, a shot position, and a shot result (favorable or unfavorable). The observation sample contained all offensive sequences ending in a shot by the US men’s wheelchair basketball team, who won the gold medal at the 2016 Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro. Data were annotated and coded in the Lince software program and their reliability confirmed by measuring interobserver agreement using Cohen’s kappa statistics. Log-linear modeling showed that the models generated to explain offensive sequences ending in a shot by players with greater functional ability were closest to models observed for professional basketball players and were the only models to show significant effects in terms of efficiency.