2025-26 regular season · 82 games · 7,304 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
Above-the-break three team: corners are only 23.8% of their threes (league 25.9%); their spacing lives higher on the arc.
T.J. McConnell is a genuine shot-maker: +8.6 pts/100 above expectation after empirical-Bayes shrinkage; contest even the bad shots.
Best shot diet: Jay Huff (1.19 xPPS on 611 FGA). The value is where the shots come from; deny the spot, not the release.
Their most-used five that wins its minutes: P. Siakam - A. Nembhard - A. Nesmith - J. Huff - J. Furphy (+2.0/100 over 196 possessions).
Shot profile vs league
IND
League
Δ
PPS (points per shot)
1.066
1.091
-0.025
xPPS, the shot-diet price*
1.084
1.097
-0.012
Shot-making, pts/100 vs model
-1.8
-0.5
-1.3
Rim share
27.1%
28.4%
-1.3 pp
Mid-range share
12.1%
10.0%
+2.0 pp
Three share
42.2%
41.5%
+0.7 pp
Corner share of threes
23.8%
25.9%
-2.1 pp
Final-4s (rush) shot share
1.6%
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
Pascal Siakam
1,155
1.059
1.022
+3.7
+2.9
+0.7
Andrew Nembhard
753
1.027
0.999
+2.8
+1.8
-3.4
Jarace Walker
733
1.019
1.069
-5.0
-3.7
-3.6
Jay Huff
611
1.147
1.194
-4.7
-3.3
-0.5
Aaron Nesmith
512
1.033
1.072
-3.9
-2.6
-0.3
T.J. McConnell
450
1.111
0.978
+13.3
+8.6
-0.5
Ben Sheppard
387
1.085
1.133
-4.7
-2.8
-1.6
Bennedict Mathurin
358
1.028
1.062
-3.4
-2.1
-1.1
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. Siakam - A. Nembhard - J. Huff - E. Thompson - B. Mathurin
96
197
-8.1
P. Siakam - A. Nembhard - A. Nesmith - J. Huff - J. Furphy
95
196
+2.0
P. Siakam - A. Nembhard - A. Nesmith - J. Huff - J. Walker