Scouting one-pager: Dallas Mavericks (DAL)
2025-26 regular season · 82 games · 7,366 FGA. Auto-generated by scouting/build_onepager.py from public data; every number traceable to a gated pipeline in this repo. Shot pricing uses the 2023-24 shot-quality model, whose season-out transfer was validated in the backtest; shot-making is empirical-Bayes shrunk before it is allowed to drive a conclusion.
Terms
- PPS: Points per shot: total points on field-goal attempts divided by attempts. Free throws excluded.
- xPPS: Expected points per shot - the model's fair price of a shot diet: what an average shooter would score on the same attempts, judged from location and shot type alone, before knowing what went in.
- shot-making: Actual minus expected points per 100 shots: conversion above or below what the shot diet itself explains. Positive means making shots the model prices as hard.
- EB making: A player's shot-making after empirical-Bayes shrinkage: the observed number pulled toward the league mean in proportion to its sampling noise. The number to trust for projection.
- FGA: Field-goal attempts.
- RAPM: Regularized adjusted plus-minus: a ridge regression crediting each player with net points per 100 possessions while adjusting for the other nine players on the floor.
- net_100: Net points per 100 possessions: 100 x plus-minus / possessions; sits on the same scale as the NBA's published net rating.
- rush: Shots in the final four seconds of a period - the desperation window where both shot selection and execution collapse.
- empirical Bayes: Estimate the spread of true skill across the league from the data, then pull each individual's noisy estimate toward the league mean in proportion to its noise.
- shrinkage weight: The fraction of an observed number that survives empirical-Bayes regression: 1 means fully trusted, 0 means replaced by the league mean.
- CI: Confidence interval.
- corner three: A three-pointer from the corner, where the NBA line is roughly 3 ft closer than the arc - the geometry discount that makes it the cheapest three.
Keys
- They hunt corner threes: 30.2% of their threes come from the corners (league 25.9%). Run shooters off the corner line first.
- Naji Marshall is a genuine shot-maker: +3.8 pts/100 above expectation after empirical-Bayes shrinkage; contest even the bad shots.
- Best shot diet: P.J. Washington (1.11 xPPS on 658 FGA). The value is where the shots come from; deny the spot, not the release.
- Their most-used five that wins its minutes: P. Washington - D. Gafford - N. Marshall - M. Christie - C. Flagg (+0.5/100 over 200 possessions).
Shot profile vs league
| DAL | League | Δ |
|---|
| PPS (points per shot) | 1.054 | 1.091 | -0.037 |
| xPPS, the shot-diet price* | 1.082 | 1.097 | -0.015 |
| Shot-making, pts/100 vs model | -2.8 | -0.5 | -2.2 |
| Rim share | 28.8% | 28.4% | +0.4 pp |
| Mid-range share | 12.9% | 10.0% | +2.8 pp |
| Three share | 35.5% | 41.5% | -6.0 pp |
| Corner share of threes | 30.2% | 25.9% | +4.3 pp |
| Final-4s (rush) shot share | 1.7% | 1.8% | -0.1 pp |
* xPPS prices where they shoot from, independent of whether shots fell: the stable, scoutable part of the profile (year-over-year r ≈ .9).
Personnel (top 8 by volume)
| Player | FGA | PPS | xPPS (diet) | Making/100 | EB making | RAPM/100 |
|---|
| Cooper Flagg | 1,194 | 0.997 | 1.031 | -3.4 | -3.0 | -0.8 |
| Naji Marshall | 821 | 1.096 | 1.044 | +5.2 | +3.8 | -0.2 |
| Klay Thompson | 728 | 1.063 | 1.066 | -0.3 | -0.4 | -0.1 |
| Max Christie | 725 | 1.131 | 1.102 | +2.9 | +1.8 | -2.2 |
| P.J. Washington | 658 | 1.015 | 1.108 | -9.2 | -6.7 | -1.9 |
| Brandon Williams | 617 | 1.002 | 1.062 | -6.1 | -4.5 | +0.3 |
| Ryan Nembhard | 390 | 0.954 | 0.979 | -2.5 | -1.7 | +1.4 |
| Anthony Davis | 334 | 1.042 | 1.086 | -4.4 | -3.0 | -0.0 |
EB making = shot-making regressed to league mean by reliability: the number to trust. RAPM from the opponent-adjusted 2025-26 lineup model (±≈3/100 CI at a season of minutes; treat as descriptive).
Most-used lineups
| Lineup | Min | Poss | Net/100 |
|---|
| P. Washington - D. Gafford - N. Marshall - M. Christie - C. Flagg | 92 | 200 | +0.5 |
| P. Washington - D. Gafford - B. Williams - M. Christie - C. Flagg | 73 | 155 | +0.0 |
| A. Davis - N. Marshall - M. Christie - C. Flagg - R. Nembhard | 72 | 155 | -7.7 |