2025-26 regular season · 82 games · 7,340 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: 29.8% of their threes come from the corners (league 25.9%). Run shooters off the corner line first.
Rim-pressure offense: 34.0% of attempts at the rim vs league 28.4%. Wall building beats switching small.
Jalen Duren is a genuine shot-maker: +7.9 pts/100 above expectation after empirical-Bayes shrinkage; contest even the bad shots.
Best shot diet: Jalen Duren (1.20 xPPS on 803 FGA). The value is where the shots come from; deny the spot, not the release.
Their most-used five that wins its minutes: T. Harris - D. Robinson - J. Duren - A. Thompson - D. Jenkins (+28.2/100 over 386 possessions).
Shot profile vs league
DET
League
Δ
PPS (points per shot)
1.093
1.091
+0.002
xPPS, the shot-diet price*
1.103
1.097
+0.007
Shot-making, pts/100 vs model
-1.1
-0.5
-0.5
Rim share
34.0%
28.4%
+5.6 pp
Mid-range share
9.2%
10.0%
-0.9 pp
Three share
34.5%
41.5%
-7.0 pp
Corner share of threes
29.8%
25.9%
+3.8 pp
Final-4s (rush) shot share
1.9%
1.8%
+0.0 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
Cade Cunningham
1,189
1.027
1.017
+1.0
+0.7
+3.9
Jalen Duren
803
1.300
1.203
+9.7
+7.9
+2.8
Duncan Robinson
698
1.226
1.105
+12.2
+7.5
+3.7
Tobias Harris
659
1.062
1.055
+0.8
+0.3
+1.3
Ausar Thompson
577
1.061
1.171
-11.0
-8.5
+1.5
Daniss Jenkins
568
0.945
1.012
-6.7
-4.7
+1.4
Ronald Holland II
544
0.956
1.141
-18.5
-12.8
+0.3
Javonte Green
414
1.121
1.160
-4.0
-2.4
+1.6
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
T. Harris - D. Robinson - C. Cunningham - J. Duren - A. Thompson
536
1,138
+11.4
T. Harris - D. Robinson - J. Duren - A. Thompson - D. Jenkins
184
386
+28.2
D. Robinson - I. Stewart - C. Cunningham - J. Duren - A. Thompson