The authors presumed that it was possible to replace certain criteria of the expert
system aimed at evaluating actual quality of basketball players, proposed by Trnini} et
al.1, with the corresponding indicators of situation-related efficiency (official statistics
of the game). Hence, the aim of this study is to verify the potential of establishing such a
combined model of expert system that would consist of both the evaluation criteria and
certain number of objectively measurable aspects of actual quality (player\u27s partial performance
or playing efficiency) and to determine its pragmatic validity. To achieve the
aim the sample comprised of 60 basketball players that were competing in the Croatian
First Division League in the 1998/99 season was tested. The sample and their quality of
play was described by the two different types of data: 1) the 13 situation-related efficiency
data (FIBA statistics of the game) utilized to objectively assess performance or
playing effectiveness of players, collected at 132 games played by 12 teams, and 2) the
evaluation data, subjectively assessing actual quality of players, i.e. their perceived
overall performance, collected at the end of the season from the 10 basketball trainers.
On the basis of relatively high correlations within the 7 pairs of mutually equivalent
variables (from 0.63 to 0.84) and the extremely high correlation (0.97) obtained between
the perceived overall performance (actual quality), subjectively assessed with respect to
the 19 criteria of the original expert evaluation system, and the overall performance (actual
quality) assessed by the combined model (where the 8 evaluation criteria had been
replaced by the 7 corresponding indicators of playing efficiency), it is feasible to consider
the combined model of expert system as an acceptable tool for more objective and economical
assessment of actual quality of basketball players
