NBA: True Shooting, PER, Net Rating, the advanced stats glossary

1. Shooting efficiency: eFG% and True Shooting (TS%)

In old-school basketball, a 4/10 night from two-point range is worth 8 points, just like a 4/10 night from deep. But the second player has banked 12 points on the same number of attempts. Advanced metrics fix that mismatch.

Effective Field Goal Percentage (eFG%)

Effective Field Goal Percentage weights three-pointers 1.5 times more than regular shots. It gives a much cleaner read on what outside shooters actually bring to the table.

True Shooting Percentage (TS%)

The True Shooting Percentage is the top metric for overall scoring efficiency. NBA analysts love it. It takes in:

• Two-point shots.
• Three-point shots.
• Free throws, which add points without showing up as field-goal attempts.

A TS% above 60% points to a player who is hugely efficient on offense, while anything below 53% usually screams poor return.

2. Pace and dominance: Pace, OffRtg, DefRtg and Net Rating

Comparing two teams without adjusting for speed is a basic mistake. A fast team will rack up more possessions and, naturally, more points, without necessarily being better.

Pace

Pace estimates how many possessions a team uses over a 48-minute game. In the NBA, it’s a handy way to judge whether a game is likely to get up and down or bog down into a grind. It also puts every team on the same scale.

Offensive Rating (OffRtg) and Defensive Rating (DefRtg)

Rather than judging an offense by points per game, these ratings are based on 100 possessions:

• Offensive Rating: points scored by a team, or by a player while on the floor, per 100 possessions.
• Defensive Rating: points allowed per 100 possessions.

Net Rating (NetRtg)

The Net Rating is simply the difference between Offensive Rating and Defensive Rating. A Net Rating of +8.0 means a team is beating opponents by 8 points per 100 possessions. It’s the cleanest way to judge the strength of a starting five or a franchise.

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3. A player’s full impact: PER, Usage Rate and Win Shares

Player Efficiency Rating (PER)

Created by John Hollinger, PER rolls up a player’s positive numbers, points, rebounds, assists, steals and blocks, then subtracts the bad stuff: turnovers, missed shots and fouls. The league average is reset to 15.0 every year. A PER above 25 is MVP-level territory.

Usage Rate (USG%)

Usage Rate measures the share of a team’s possessions used by a player while he’s on the floor, ending in a shot, free throws or a turnover. A star point guard often sits above 30%, which tells you he’s the main engine of the offense.

Win Shares (WS)

Win Shares try to assign direct wins to a player based on offensive and defensive value. If a team wins 50 games and a player posts 12.5 Win Shares, the logic says he’s worth a quarter of those wins. It’s a big number in NBA circles when you’re trying to sharpen player-stats calls.

4. Breaking down defense: Defending FG%, D-Rating and contests

Defense spent years as the neglected side of the box score. Now, with tracking cameras and other data tools, defenders can be judged much more precisely.

Defended field-goal differential (DFG%)

This stat measures how often an attacker shoots successfully against a specific defender compared with his normal rate. A negative figure, such as -6.5%, means the defender is dragging his opponents’ efficiency down hard.

Contested Shots and Deflections

Contested shots count how often a player jumps or raises his arms to disrupt an attempt. Deflections track balls tipped on passes or dribbles, a key stat for valuing active perimeter defenders.

5. FAQ: Making sense of NBA analytics