Every metric, explained
Plain-English definitions for every stat across the app, from net rating to Synergy play types, with a note on which direction is good.
How to read the numbers
A few conventions used across every page.
Most colored cells are shaded by league percentile, a value's rank against every qualifying player, lineup, or team in the same season type (above a minutes or possessions minimum). Green is the top of the league, red is the bottom, so very different stats compare on one 0–100 scale.
Rate stats are normalized to 100 possessions so fast- and slow-paced teams compare fairly. 'Totals' instead show raw cumulative counts.
Stats split into Regular Season and Playoffs. Playoff samples are much smaller, so treat playoff splits as directional.
Efficiency & ratings
Per-possession measures of how good a team or unit is.
Offensive Rating - Points scored per 100 possessions
Defensive Rating - Points allowed per 100 possessions (lower is better)
Net Rating - Point differential per 100 possessions (Offensive Rating - Defensive Rating)
Chemistry - How far this five-man unit outperforms the sum of its parts: actual net rating minus what our RAPM model predicts from the ten players on the floor (per 100, opponent-adjusted). Our estimate; Regular Season lineups with enough possessions only
Scoring WPA - Win probability added by made baskets, weighted by leverage: a buzzer-beating game-winner is worth ~+0.9 wins, a garbage-time bucket ~0. Misses aren't debited, so it reads as leverage-weighted scoring. Our estimate from play-by-play
Pace - Number of possessions per 48 minutes
Player Impact Estimate - Overall statistical contribution measure
Plus/Minus - Point differential when lineup is on the court
Shooting
How efficiently shots go in.
Effective Field Goal Percentage - Adjusted field goal percentage that accounts for 3-pointers being worth more
True Shooting Percentage - Shooting efficiency that accounts for 2PT, 3PT, and free throws
Field Goal Percentage
Three-Point Field Goal Percentage
Free Throw Percentage
Playmaking & ball security
Creating shots for others and protecting the ball.
Assist Percentage - Percentage of field goals that were assisted
Assist Ratio - Percentage of possessions that end in an assist
Assist to Turnover Ratio - Number of assists per turnover
Turnover Percentage - Percentage of possessions that end in a turnover
Rebounding
Share of available rebounds secured.
Rebound Percentage - Percentage of available rebounds grabbed by the team
Offensive Rebound Percentage - Percentage of available offensive rebounds grabbed
Defensive Rebound Percentage - Percentage of available defensive rebounds grabbed
Box score
The classic counting stats.
Points
Total Rebounds
Assists
Steals
Blocks
Turnovers
Personal Fouls
Field Goals Made
Field Goals Attempted
Three-Point Field Goals Made
Three-Point Field Goals Attempted
Free Throws Made
Free Throws Attempted
Offensive Rebounds
Defensive Rebounds
Games Played - Number of games this lineup has played together
Minutes played by the lineup
Win Percentage - The percentage of games won when this lineup plays together
WOWY / on-off
How a team changes with a player on versus off the floor.
The team's net rating per 100 possessions while the player is on the court versus on the bench.
On-court net rating minus off-court net rating. Positive means the team plays better with the player on the floor.
Small on/off samples are noisy. A player with 80 minutes can post a wild swing. We 'pad' ΔNET by shrinking it toward zero based on on-court minutes, so a big number only survives if enough minutes back it. The adjusted figure is more trustworthy than the raw one; leaderboards sort by it.
On/off is shaped by which teammates and opponents share the floor and by sample size. It's a correlation, not a clean causal effect. Pair it with lineup and play-type data before drawing conclusions.
Clutch
Performance when the game is on the line.
The last 5 minutes of a game with the score within 5 points.
Net rating per 100 possessions during clutch time.
Shooting efficiency in clutch time. Useful, but clutch possessions accumulate slowly. Single-season clutch splits are noisy.
A player's on-court net rating in clutch time minus their overall on-court net rating. Does the team get better or worse with them on the floor late? Padded by clutch minutes (which are few), so treat it as directional.
Play types (Synergy)
How possessions are used, and how efficient each type is.
A Synergy classification of how a possession is used: isolation, pick-and-roll ball handler or roll man, post-up, spot-up, hand-off, cut, off-screen, transition, putbacks, and miscellaneous.
Points produced per possession finishing in this play type. The headline efficiency number. Roughly 1.00 is league-average.
Share of a player's or team's possessions that come from this play type, how often they run it.
League rank (0–100) for PPP within a play type. 90 means more efficient than 90% of the league.
Offensive measures the player or team running the action; defensive measures how they defend it. On defense, a lower PPP allowed is better.
Player tracking
Movement- and touch-based stats from optical tracking.
Touches that start at least 20 feet out and are dribbled within 10 feet of the rim, excluding fast breaks.
Jump shots taken right after a catch with no dribble and a defender no closer than ~4 feet, a proxy for spot-up shooting.
Jump shots taken off the dribble, a proxy for self-created shot-making.
How often a player touches the ball and how long they hold it, a read on usage and on-ball role.
Opponent field-goal percentage at the rim when this player is the closest defender, lower is better.
Hustle
Effort plays the box score misses.
Times a defender gets a hand on the ball outside of steals, a disruption signal.
Loose balls a player secures for their team.
Offensive fouls drawn by taking a charge.
Screens that directly lead to a teammate's made basket.
Times a player boxes out an opponent to help secure a rebound.
Shots a defender contests by closing out with a hand up.
Advanced impact (our estimates)
Self-computed impact metrics. See the Methodology page for exactly how each is built and what it can't tell you.
Informed Plus-Minus - our flagship impact estimate: RAPM re-fit to shrink each player toward a box-score prior trained on our own nine seasons of RAPM, instead of toward zero. Stable and current-season; beat pure RAPM in 17 of 17 held-out tests. Our estimate; see Methodology
Offensive IPM - the offensive half of Informed Plus-Minus. Our estimate
Defensive IPM - the defensive half of Informed Plus-Minus. Positive is good defense. Our estimate
Regularized Adjusted Plus-Minus - our ridge-regression estimate of a player's per-100 impact, controlling for teammates and opponents, from reconstructed play-by-play. Single-season is noisy. Our estimate; see Methodology
3-year RAPM - the RAPM fit pooled over the last three seasons with recency weighting. The stable read on a player's impact; prefer it over single-season RAPM. Our estimate
Offensive RAPM - the offensive half of RAPM (per-100 impact on team offense, opponent- and teammate-adjusted). Our estimate
Defensive RAPM - the defensive half of RAPM. Positive is good defense. Our estimate
Scoring WPA - Win probability added by made baskets, weighted by leverage: a buzzer-beating game-winner is worth ~+0.9 wins, a garbage-time bucket ~0. Misses aren't debited, so it reads as leverage-weighted scoring. Our estimate from play-by-play
Chemistry - How far this five-man unit outperforms the sum of its parts: actual net rating minus what our RAPM model predicts from the ten players on the floor (per 100, opponent-adjusted). Our estimate; Regular Season lineups with enough possessions only
Box Plus/Minus (BPM 2.0) - per-100 contribution estimated from the box score + team context. Our estimate on NBA.com data; tracks Basketball-Reference within ~0.2-0.3
Value Over Replacement Player - BPM scaled by minutes against a replacement-level baseline. Our estimate
Shot-making over expected - actual eFG% minus the league-average eFG% on the player's exact shot-location mix (in eFG points). Isolates finishing from shot selection. Our estimate
Box Creation (Ben Taylor) - open shots created for others per 100 possessions, from the box score. Our estimate; see Methodology
Offensive Load (Ben Taylor) - the share of a team's offense a player shoulders (creation + scoring load + turnovers), per 100. Our estimate
Team IPM - minutes-weighted sum of player IPM (five on court): what the roster is worth. Predicts future game margins better than results-based ratings in our held-out tests. Our estimate; see Methodology
SRS - point margin adjusted for opponent and venue, solved by least squares over every game. The results-based team rating. Our estimate
Offensive SRS - the offensive half of SRS (points scored, opponent-adjusted, per game). Our estimate
Defensive SRS - the defensive half of SRS. Positive is good defense. Our estimate
Strength of schedule - average opponent SRS a team actually faced. Higher = harder schedule. Our estimate
Offensive SOS - average opposing defense faced (higher = tougher defenses for your offense). Our estimate
Defensive SOS - average opposing offense faced (higher = tougher offenses for your defense). Our estimate
Estimated metrics
NBA's modeled, single-number player impact estimates.
Regression-based estimates of player impact (E_OFF_RATING, E_DEF_RATING, E_NET_RATING, E_USG_PCT, E_PACE and more), modeled from box-score and contextual inputs rather than measured directly. Handy as quick single-number ratings.
Estimated point differential per 100 possessions attributable to the player.
Estimated share of team plays a player uses while on the floor.