5 NBA Stats to Know From the Last Week
The True Shooting Percentage Leaderboard Is Weird
For the uninitiated, here's what the fine folks at Basketball Reference have to say about True Shooting Percentage: "True shooting percentage (TS%) is a measure of shooting efficiency that takes into account field goals, three-point field goals, and free throws."
The formula for calculating TS% goes like this: (0.5 x points) / (FGA + 0.475 x FTA). So, y'know, have fun with that.
TS% is a crucial number, so much so that Tyler Gaffney posited in his Claremont College thesis with the snappy title "An Analysis of the Contract Year Phenomenon in the NBA: Do Players Perform Better or Worse" that teams should weigh the stat heavily when deciding a player's salary.
Some of the folks who comprise this early season's top-10 TS% list are already quite content with their bank accounts. Other, probably not as much -- and you can bet if they keep their TS% rolling, they'll bring it into their negotiation session:
| Rank | Player | Team | TS% | Points |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Tony Snell | MIL | .728 | 10.2 |
| 2 | Steven Adams | OKC | .687 | 12.5 |
| 3 | LeBron James | CLE | .680 | 28.8 |
| 4 | Otto Porter Jr. | WAS | .678 | 18.3 |
| 5 | Rudy Gobert | UTA | .669 | 13.9 |
| 6 | Kevin Durant | GS | .662 | 24.8 |
| 7 | Stephen Curry | GS | .659 | 25.7 |
| 8 | James Ennis | MEM | .657 | 9.3 |
| 9 | Aaron Gordon | ORL | .652 | 19.1 |
| 10 | Karl-Anthony Towns | MIN | .645 | 21.8 |
James Ennis will be an unrestricted free agent next summer. Just saying.
