What is NBA TopShot?

I’m sure if you are a NFT enthusiast, you’ve heard NBA TopShot name many times. As a matter of fact, this collection has a very crucial in mainstream awareness about NFTs since NBA is one of the most popular organizations around the world.

NBA TopShot is a collection of remarkable NBA moments in video format, which turned into NFTs on Flow blockchain and under license and partnership with NBA itself. They come in different packs and sets and are tradable in their official marketplace.

What are we going to look at in this dashboard?

People are speculating on their TopShot moments and millions of dollars are trading in volume. But how can you assess how much a moment worth?

First of all ==there are different rarities== which like any other NFT collection determines the most valuable assets. But demand is not only bound to more rare moments, but ==also to many other factors like Player, Play type, Team, round numbers, etc.==

In this analysis, We aim to investigate about ==relevance of Play types to popularity of TopShot moments.==

You will learn:

• How much sale volume and count each Play Type has.
• Number and volume of sales for each Play type over time.
• Number of Buyers and sellers of each Play Type.
• Who are the top Players in ‘‘Rim’’ Play Types?

Note that the period for this Analysis is from 2022/04/20 to current date

Data & Analysis

There are 9 Different Play types and each moment can only have one play type, so there is no overlapping situation.

Rim Play type has the most sale volume with just above 3 million USD. ==But is it also true in other metrics like number of sales?==

Chart below shows this popularity again. Rim plays had ~3X more number of sales than 3 Pointers, but less than 2X volume, which suggests that 3 Pointers are more expensive on average.

Looking at the same concept from another angle, you can see how sale volume and count changed over time in next two charts.

• Also there are some spikes in Rim Plays every now and then, but you can see that this category retained its dominance over other plays in most days.
• There is a clear decrease in volume and number of sales specially as we get close to final days of NBA season.
• Before May 3rd, Number of Sales are significantly lower than what we expect to see based on sale volume; Suggesting that traded items in this period were more expensive.

Also as the chart in front shows, Rim plays have the most number of unique sellers and buyers by far.

Now Let’s see if there is any other remarkable trace behind popularity of Rim plays.

One possible way that I chose to implement is that to see what players are among top Rim plays. As the chart below shows, Top 5 Players have moments in 1 to 4 categories. This means that to have a moment from a player as popular as magic johnson or steph curry, you’ll probably end up getting a Rim play by a good chance. Also scottie barnes which is the most popular player in this play type, is only available in Rim category so attracts much trades.

Conclusion

As you saw Rim Play types are by far the most popular both in sales volume and number. Beside from the aforementioned point on Player influence on these popularity, I believe there is a reason that can not be reflected on-chain; One that a NBA fan understands.

I believe Rim plays are ones that happen in the hottest moments of the game, when players are most focused. The most memorable and decisive moments happen in these times and more people want to own these moments.

Anyhow, we now know that Rim plays are the most popular play type with ~ 3 million in volume and ~ 120K in number of sales. They also have the most unique buyers and sellers. The fact that they have the most number of moments is also of importance here.