Comparison between the WNBA and WEL: differences and key performance indicators in top women basketball leagues
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.47197/retos.v63.107098Keywords:
Basketball, Euroleague, performance analysis, WNBA, womenAbstract
Introduction: This study focused on comparing performance between the WNBA and the Euroleague Women, identifying key variables to optimize key strategies in women's basketball.
Objective: To establish a comparison between the Women's National Basketball Association (WNBA) and the Euroleague Women (WEL) in different phases of the season (regular season and playoffs). In addition, to obtain the main differentiating variables between these competitions and the "best teams" (those qualified for the playoffs) of each league.
Methodology: Data were collected from the 2018/2019 season in the WNBA and 2019 for the WEL, collected from official statistics. Using Discriminant Analysis, the most relevant variables related to victory during the regular season were obtained.
Results: Differences in play were observed between the two competitions (in 12 of the 19 variables during the regular season; and in 10 in the playoff sample). The results showed differences between the number of possessions per team, blocks and points between the leagues.
Discussion: The comparison between the best teams showed differences in points, total rebounds and defensive rebounds. Only the WNBA teams had a higher percentage of 3-point success.
Conclusions: The results of this research could be considered valuable information for coaches in these leagues in order to develop appropriate game strategies considering the importance of each variable in achieving victory. Thus, this work could contribute with new information related to women's basketball to the study of performance, due to the lack of specific research in this area.
References
Conte, D., & Lukonaitiene, I. (2018). Scoring strategies differentiating between winning and losing teams during FIBA EuroBasket Women 2017. Sports, 6(2), 50. Doi: 10.3390/sports6020050
Delextrat, A.; Badiella, A;, Saavedra, V.; Matthew, D.; Schelling, X., & Torres-Ronda, L. (2015). Match activity demands of elite Spanish female basketball players by playing position. International Journal of Performance Analysis in Sport, 15(2), 687-703. doi: 10.1080/24748668.2015.11868824.
Dogan, I., & Ersoz, Y. (2019). The important game-related statistics for qualifying next rounds in Euroleague. Montenegrin Journal of Sports Science and Medicine, 8(1), 43. doi: 10.26773/mjssm.190307.
García, J.: Ibáñez, S. J.; De Santos, R. M.; Leite, N., & Sampaio, J. (2013). Identifying basketball performance indicators in regular season and playoff games. Journal of human kinetics, 36, 161. doi: 10.2478/hukin-2013-0016.
Gòmez, M. Á.; Lorenzo, A.; Ortega, E.; Sampaio, J., & Ibàñez, S. J. (2009). Game related statistics discriminating between starters and nonstarters players in Women’s National Basketball Association League (WNBA). Journal of Sports Science & Medicine, 8(2), 278.
Gómez, M. A.; Jiménez, S.; Sánchez, P. A., & Leo, F. M. (2009). Análisis de la ventaja de jugar en casa en diferentes ligas de baloncesto femenino. Revista Kronos, 8(15).
Ibáñez, S. J.; Feu, S., & Dorado, G. (2003, November). Análisis de las diferencias en el juego en función del género y categoría de los jugadores. In Comunicación presentada en el II Congreso Ibérico de Baloncesto. 2, 73-88.
Ibáñez, S. J.; González-Espinosa, S.; Feu, S., & García-Rubio, J. (2017). Basketball without borders? Similarities and differences among Continental Basketball Championships. [¿Baloncesto sin fronteras? Similitudes y diferencias entre los Campeonatos Continentales de baloncesto]. RICYDE. Revista Internacional de Ciencias del Deporte. doi: 10.5232/ricyde, 14(51), 42-54.
Ibáñez, S. J.; Santos, J. A., & García, J. (2015). Multifactorial analysis of free throw shooting in eliminatory basketball games. International Journal of Performance Analysis in Sport, 15(3), 897-912. doi: 10.1080/24748668.2015.11868839.
Leicht, A. S.; Gomez, M. A., & Woods, C. T. (2017). Team performance indicators explain outcome during women’s basketball matches at the Olympic Games. Sports, 5(4), 96. doi: 10.3390/sports5040096.
Lorenzo, A.; Gómez, M. Á.; Ortega, E.; Ibáñez, S. J., & Sampaio, J. (2010). Game related statistics which discriminate between winning and losing under-16 male basketball games. Journal of sports science & medicine, 9(4), 664.
Madarame, H. (2018a). Defensive rebounds discriminate winners from losers in European but not in Asian women’s basketball championships. Asian Journal of Sports Medicine, 9(1), e67428. doi: 10.5812/asjsm.67428.
Madarame, H. (2018b). Regional differences in women’s basketball: A comparison among Continental Championships. Sports, 6(3), 65. doi: 10.3390/sports6030065.
Madarame, H. (2018c). Basketball game-related statistics that discriminate among continental championships for under-18 women. Sports, 6(4), 114. doi: 10.3390/sports6040114.
Mandić, R.; Jakovljević, S.; Erčulj, F., & Štrumbelj, E. (2019). Trends in NBA and Euroleague basketball: Analysis and comparison of statistical data from 2000 to 2017. PloS one, 14(10), e0223524. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0223524.
Marmarinos, C.; Apostolidis, A.; Bolatoglou, T.; Kostopoulos, N., & Apostolidis, N. (2016). Game-Related Statistics that Discriminate Playoffs Teams from the Rest of the Competition in Euroleague Basketball. J Athl Enhanc 5: 6. of, 5, 2. doi: 10.4172/2324-9080.1000245.
McGoldrick, K., & Voeks, L. (2005). “We got game!” an analysis of win/loss probability and efficiency differences between the NBA and WNBA. Journal of Sports Economics, 6(1), 5-23. doi: 10.1177/1527002503262649.
Melnick, M. J. (2001). Relationship between team assists and win-loss record in the National Basketball Association. Perceptual and Motor Skills, 92(2), 595-602. doi: 10.2466/pms.2001.92.2.595.
Mikołajec, K.; Maszczyk, A., & Zając, T. (2013). Game indicators determining sports performance in the NBA. Journal of human kinetics, 37, 145. doi: 10.2478/hukin-2013-0035.
Moreno, E.; Gómez, M. A.; Lago, C., & Sampaio, J. (2013). Effects of starting quarter score, game location, and quality of opposition in quarter score in elite women’s basketball. Kinesiology, 45(1.), 48-54.
Özmen, M. U. (2016). Marginal contribution of game statistics to probability of winning at different levels of competition in basketball: Evidence from the Euroleague. International Journal of Sports Science & Coaching, 11(1), 98-107. doi: 10.1177/1747954115624828.
Paulauskas, R.; Masiulis, N.; Vaquera, A.; Figueira, B., & Sampaio, J. (2018). Basketball game-related statistics that discriminate between European players competing in the NBA and in the Euroleague. Journal of human kinetics, 65(1), 225-233. doi: 10.2478/hukin-2018-0030.
Pérez-Ferreirós, A.; Kalén, A., & Rey, E. (2018). Short-and mid-term effects of the 2010 rule changes on game-related statistics in European basketball championships: An interrupted time series analysis. International Journal of Sports Science & Coaching, 13(6), 1081-1089. doi: 10.1177/1747954118765738.
Ransdell, L. B.; Murray, T.; Gao, Y.; Jones, P., & Bycura, D. (2020). A 4-year profile of game demands in elite women's division I college basketball. The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, 34(3), 632-638. doi: 10.1519/JSC.0000000000003425.
Romaris, I. U.; Refoyo, I., & Lorenzo, J. (2016). Comparison of the game rhythm in Spanish Female League and ACB League. Cuadernos de Psicología del Deporte, 16(2), 161-167.
Sampaio, J.; Ibañez, S., & Feu, S. (2004). Discriminative power of basketball game-related statistics by level of competition and sex. Perceptual and motor Skills, 99(3_suppl), 1231-1238. doi: 10.2466/pms.99.3f.1231-1238.
Spiteri, T.; Binetti, M.; Scanlan, A. T.; Dalbo, V. J.; Dolci, F., & Specos, C. (2019). Physical determinants of division 1 collegiate basketball, women's national basketball league, and women's National Basketball Association athletes: With reference to lower-body sidedness. The Journal of Strength & Conditioning Research, 33(1), 159-166. doi: 10.1519/JSC.0000000000001905.
Štrumbelj, E.; Vračar, P.; Robnik-Šikonja, M.; Dežman, B., & Erčulj, F. (2013). A decade of euroleague basketball: An analysis of trends and recent rule change effects. Journal of human kinetics, 38, 183. doi: 10.2478/hukin-2013-0058.
Veleirinho, A., & Tavares, F. (2013). Did the three point line change influence the female youth basketball? Analysis of the predictive factors from winning teams (U-16 and U-20). Revista de psicología del deporte, 22(1), 283-287.
Williams, G. (2014). Game-related statistics that discriminate between winning and losing teams in the National Basketball Association (Doctoral dissertation, Cardiff Metropolitan University).
Zhai, Z.; Guo, Y.; Zhang, S.; Li, Y., & Liu, H. (2021). Explaining Positional Differences of Performance Profiles for the Elite Female Basketball Players. Frontiers in Psychology, 3792. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2020.558750.
Zhai, Z.; Guo, Y.; Li, Y.; Zhang, S., & Liu, H. (2020). The regional differences in game-play styles considering playing position in the FIBA female continental basketball competitions. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 17(16), 5827. doi: 10.3390/ijerph17165827.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 Jorge Lorenzo Calvo, Rafael Manuel Navarro Barragán, Carlos Serrano Luengo, Guillermo Muñoz Andradas
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
- Authors retain copyright and ensure the magazine the right to be the first publication of the work as licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgment of authorship of the work and the initial publication in this magazine.
- Authors can establish separate additional agreements for non-exclusive distribution of the version of the work published in the journal (eg, to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgment of its initial publication in this journal.
- Is allowed and authors are encouraged to disseminate their work electronically (eg, in institutional repositories or on their own website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as to a subpoena more Early and more of published work (See The Effect of Open Access) (in English).
This journal provides immediate open access to its content (BOAI, http://legacy.earlham.edu/~peters/fos/boaifaq.htm#openaccess) on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. The authors may download the papers from the journal website, or will be provided with the PDF version of the article via e-mail.
