2025-26 regular season · 82 games · 7,196 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.
Keys
Nikola Jokić is a genuine shot-maker: +16.1 pts/100 above expectation after empirical-Bayes shrinkage; contest even the bad shots.
Best shot diet: Aaron Gordon (1.15 xPPS on 398 FGA). The value is where the shots come from; deny the spot, not the release.
Their most-used five that wins its minutes: N. Jokić - J. Murray - C. Johnson - P. Watson - S. Jones (+17.8/100 over 354 possessions).
Shot profile vs league
DEN
League
Δ
PPS (points per shot)
1.154
1.091
+0.062
xPPS, the shot-diet price*
1.085
1.097
-0.012
Shot-making, pts/100 vs model
+6.9
-0.5
+7.4
Rim share
26.9%
28.4%
-1.5 pp
Mid-range share
11.6%
10.0%
+1.6 pp
Three share
40.8%
41.5%
-0.7 pp
Corner share of threes
26.7%
25.9%
+0.8 pp
Final-4s (rush) shot share
1.7%
1.8%
-0.2 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
Jamal Murray
1,360
1.146
0.996
+15.0
+12.1
+2.6
Nikola Jokić
1,132
1.237
1.038
+19.9
+16.1
+4.9
Tim Hardaway Jr.
779
1.181
1.088
+9.3
+6.0
+1.4
Peyton Watson
581
1.120
1.125
-0.4
-0.5
+1.6
Bruce Brown
522
1.059
1.113
-5.3
-3.8
-3.3
Cameron Johnson
475
1.192
1.131
+6.0
+3.3
+2.4
Aaron Gordon
398
1.148
1.146
+0.3
-0.1
+2.9
Jonas Valančiūnas
390
1.185
1.086
+9.9
+6.1
-0.8
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
A. Gordon - N. Jokić - J. Murray - C. Johnson - C. Braun
360
753
+14.7
N. Jokić - J. Murray - C. Johnson - P. Watson - S. Jones
171
354
+17.8
N. Jokić - J. Murray - C. Johnson - J. Strawther - C. Braun