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