Multi-criteria assessment and ranking system of sport team formation based on objective-measured values of criteria set

Keywords: Basketball team formation Ranking Multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) TOPSIS a b s t r a c t Basketball is one of the most popular sports games in the world. Professional basketball has become a significant contributor to global economics and business. Considerable funds attracted by the game motivate participants of the sporting process (players, coaches, club owners, administration and etc.) to strive for better athletic results, this way promoting internal and external rivalry. A large number of players and the desire of teams to attract better team members as well as improve the quality of the already available athletes, boost the use of assessment and rating processes. The most popular and widely used player rating systems are based on performance statistics, which reflect situational factors of the game. Most specialists believe that such systems lack objectivity. Meanwhile, the Authors suggest a systematic solution, i.e. an adjusted well-known TOPSIS method and principles for the design of the algorithm based on the method. As a consistent problem solving system, algorithms based on multi-criteria decision-making are regarded to be simple and clear, suitable to substantiate solutions as well as easily applied in practise. Methodologies used by the Authors will help ensuring a greater efficiency of player and team rating, more accurate prognoses of sports results, team formation, and optimisation of the training process considering individualism of team players and encouraging their versatility, i.e. conformity to general physical preparedness norms of the team. The suggested research methods could be used in other sports. Furthermore , these principles could be used in business management for team formation. Some authors argue that basketball requires reciprocal coaching with leadership and decision-making based on sharing (Erculj & Supej, 2009) as well as on a collaborative and facilitating environment , which is rather different from dominant and controlling basketball coaching described by (Adler & Adler, 1988). Basketball involves many continuous motor skills. However, shooting is a relatively discreet skill (Stec, 2012). Thus, basketball requires a tremendous amount of gross motor skills that involve the movement of the whole body. In basketball, taking a foul shot is a relatively closed environment when compared to the movement required to execute an offensive set. The sequence of plays is unpredictable and dependant on a situation. To a large extent, success depends on the ability to effectively execute discrete tasks. This does not imply that basketball has nothing to do with continuous motor …