Acquisition
Motivation: The Effect on Performance After Being Traded in the NHL
Late in
February the NHL becomes all hyped when the Trade Deadline looms
closer and closer to see which players leave for new teams and which
players stay put. The question after every trade is made is, “Was
it worth it to give up this player for this player?” According to
the article by Philip White and William McTeer writers of, “The
Effect on Performance of Being Traded During The Season: The Case of
The National Hockey League”, traded players are likely to increase
their performance post-trade with the new team then prior to trade
when on the their original team.
The
article goes through the method of how they got there, the discussion
of the data they received and finally a graph that shows the data
they received. How they measured performance by the players was by
average number scoring (goals and assists), because of this they only
used centers and wingers in the study. The centers and wingers were
then split up into three categories: all the players, players who had
played 269 or fewer games and players who have played 270 or more
games. They also split up the data into four time periods: season
prior to the trade, partial season before the trade, remainder of the
season after the trade, and finally the following season after the
trade.
What
White and McTeer found was that all the players performed poorly
before the trade than the season before the trade. After the trade,
performance increased .071 in the all players category from .225 and
.296. In comparison their performance dipped in the season before
they were traded from the previous season, but then their average
shot up after being traded, and then went back to about same
performance before the season they were traded. According to White
and McTeer, “These players improved in the post-trade period by a
rate of almost a goal a game but reverted to their "normal"
level of performance the following year.” This data suggests that
players' performance increases after being traded in both the dip of
performance before the trade and then the large increase after being
traded. From the findings White and McTeer discuss why this data
could have happened.
White and
McTeer go on to discuss why players would play so much better with
the team they were originally on at the start of the season than the
new team at the end of the season. Both writers seem to point to the
motivation theory that players who are traded to new teams seem to
respond to the change with increased effort resulting in improved
performance. First, before a trade a player may under perform because
he is unhappy or mistreated in a given team situation. Coaching
staff could be using the player less because of bad play, personal
reasons or even contractual reasons. In these instances the player
has less opportunity to score, reducing the performance of the player
in goals and assists. After a trade, the player is in a new place
with new people and maybe even the season is going well for the team,
removing that former stress, and likely motivating the player,
causing him to be more productive. With this new environment the
player could get extra opportunities to score giving more playing
time than normal which could boost his numbers. Or take the opinion
of an attribution theorist (Rosenbaum,Weiner), who has his own reason
for why players have increased performance after being traded. They
take first an experienced player before the trade, who usually played
well his career and will likely blame his uncharacteristic poor
performance on external problems such as bad luck or his teammates or
coaches. These attributes may have negative consequences on the
players' effort and motivation. He may perceive that he's putting in
the maximum effort but may not improve his performance because of a
lack of a good supporting cast around him. After a trade, the player
may reassess his chances for success, being liberated from being
moved from an unproductive environment to a brand new one which could
make him more optimistic and more motivated. For inexperienced
players, they are more likely to blame their performance more on
themselves then others around them. This could explain why there
numbers are little lower in performance before and after trades, as
they lower expectancies for success following the trade because of
the numbers they had before the trade. This proves the players
perform much better after being traded generally saying they are more
motivated and more optimistic in their new environment than in their
old one; which will likely increase there performance on the new
team.
With the
findings found in this article by White and McTeer, we can assume
that hockey players perform much better after a trade than prior to
a trade when on their original team. In conclusion, when players
play better comes down to fact that they are more motivated in an new
environment, which results in increased performance of the player. So
next time your unsure that the player your favorite team traded for
will be either a stud or a dud think about this word motivation.
White,
Phillip G., and William G. McTeet. "THE EFFECT ON PERFORMANCE OF
BEING TRADED DURING THE SEASON: THE CASE OF THE NATIONAL HOCKEY
LEAGUE*." Journal of Sport Behavior
14 (1991).
