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Explaining the Data

The team pages contain a table listing the shooting distribution for each player. The example shown below comes from the Texas team page from December 28, 2011. Let's use this example as an illustration to help understand the table.

Player	FGA	TS%	%Shots at Rim	FG% at Rim	%Assisted at Rim	%Shots 2pt Jumpers	FG% 2pt Jumpers	%Assisted 2pt Jumpers	%Shots 3pt	FG% 3pt	%assisted 3pt	FTA/FGA	FT%
J'Covan Brown	188	0.548	23%	65%	39%	36%	40%	37.0%	41%	36%	50%	0.24	78%

1. The first column lists the name of each player. This is pretty self explanatory.
2. The second column, FGA, gives the number of field goal attempts for each player in the play-by-play database.
3. TS% stands for true shooting percentage. This is a statistic that accounts for the different values of two point shots and three point shots, as well as including the value added by made free throws. A more in depth explanation is here. Generally, a number of about 0.55 or greater is pretty good.
4. %Shots at Rim described the percentage of a player's field goal attempts that are either classified as layups, dunks, or tip-ins in the play-by-play data.
5. FG% at Rim is just the field goal percentage on shots at the rim.
6. %Assisted at Rim is the percentage of made shots at the rim that were assisted. This provides some information as to how often a player is receiving passes that set them up to score at the rim compared with how often that player creates his own shot at the rim.
7. The columns for two point jump shots (2pt Jumpers) and three point jump shots (3pt) are derived in a similar fashion to the at the rim data.
8. FTA/FGA is the ratio of free throw attempts to field goal attempts. This is a simple way of measuring the frequency with which a player gets to the line. Numbers around 0.3 are pretty typical.
9. FT% is the player's percentage from the free throw line.

Some information about team defensive results is also presented on the team pages. The table below shows an example of these data for the 2011-2012 Kentucky basketball team.

Shot Type	% of Shots	FG%	% of Shots Blocked	Unblocked FG%
At Rim	31.8%	55.6%	16.8%	66.8%
2pt Jumpers	39.2%	26.7%	20.3%	33.5%
3pt Shots	28.9%	31.8%	3.8%	33.0%

1. The first column lists the three shot location categories. Shots are either recorded as being taken at the rim, as two point jump shots, or as three point jump shots.
2. The second column lists the percentage of total opponent field goal attempts that are taken from each of the three shot locations.
3. The third column lists the opponent field goal percentages for each shot type.
4. The fourth column lists the percentage of total attempts of each shot type that were blocked. In this case we can see that Kentucky blocked a significant percentage of their opponents' two point attempts.
5. The fifth column lists the opponent field goal percentages for each shot type on unblocked shots.

To help put the offensive and defensive results into context, the table below lists the database averages for shot locations, location specific field goal percentages, and shot block percentages for the 2011-2012 season.

Shot Data: 2012-2013 Database averages

Shot Type	% of shots	FG%	% of Shots Blocked	Unblocked FG%
At Rim	33.8%	59.7%	10.5%	66.6%
2pt Jumpers	33.0%	34.9%	7.1%	37.6%
3pt Shots	33.2%	33.8%	1.0%	34.1%

In order to help to better understand the types of shots teams and their opponents take, all team pages contain a table that looks at the initial shots that teams attempt after taking possession. This table covers four types of possessions: ones that start off of rebounds of opponent misses, ones that start after a score by the opponent, ones that start from steals, and ones that start from dead ball turnovers. These four types of possessions cover most, but not all, of the possessions that occur in a basketball game. Shots that occur after the defense fouls are not included.

The table below is an example, taken from the 2011-2012 Wisconsin team page.

Start of poss	% of initial shots	eFG%	% Shots at rim	FG% at rim	% Shots 2pt Jumpers	FG% 2pt Jumpers	% Shots 3pt	FG% 3pt
Rebound, 0-10 s	12%	59%	21%	81%	25%	44%	54%	38%
Rebound, 11-35 s	28%	50%	24%	66%	35%	35%	41%	36%
Opp score, 0-10 s	3%	50%	11%	100%	23%	50%	66%	28%
Opp score, 11-35 s	36%	47%	21%	53%	35%	33%	45%	37%
Steal, 0-10 s	4%	80%	56%	77%	19%	50%	26%	71%
Steal, 11-35 s	5%	47%	24%	50%	44%	38%	32%	38%
Deadball Turnover, 0-10 s	3%	56%	23%	50%	31%	45%	46%	44%
Deadball Turnover, 11-35 s	9%	54%	27%	45%	36%	44%	37%	47%

1. The first column lists the different ways that teams can take possession, and further divides the data by the time after taking possession where an initial shot occurs.
2. The second column lists the percentage of total initial shots in the table that occurred with the possession/time of shot category.
3. The third column lists the effective field goal percentage (eFG%) averaged over all shots within the possession/time of shot category.
4. The remaining columns describe the shot location distribution and field goal percentages for each shot type within the possession/time of shot category.

This article may help provide context for interpreting these data. As a reference, here are the database averages from the 2011-2012 season.

Initial Shot of a Possession Data: 2011-2012 Database averages

Start of poss	% of initial shots	eFG%	% Shots at rim	FG% at rim	% Shots 2pt Jumpers	FG% 2pt Jumpers	% Shots 3pt	FG% 3pt
Rebound, 0-10 s	14%	53%	38%	64%	24%	36%	38%	35%
Rebound, 11-35 s	20%	47%	27%	58%	38%	34%	35%	35%
Opp score, 0-10 s	6%	49%	31%	62%	27%	34%	42%	32%
Opp score, 11-35 s	38%	47%	26%	58%	38%	35%	36%	34%
Steal, 0-10 s	8%	62%	63%	72%	16%	37%	22%	36%
Steal, 11-35 s	3%	46%	27%	59%	38%	33%	35%	34%
Deadball Turnover, 0-10 s	2%	51%	34%	64%	30%	36%	36%	34%
Deadball Turnover, 11-35 s	8%	46%	26%	57%	39%	34%	34%	31%