2025-26 regular season Ā· 82 games Ā· 6,863 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
Luka DonÄiÄ is a genuine shot-maker: +12.1 pts/100 above expectation after empirical-Bayes shrinkage; contest even the bad shots.
Best shot diet: Jaxson Hayes (1.42 xPPS on 262 FGA). The value is where the shots come from; deny the spot, not the release.
Their most-used five that wins its minutes: L. James - M. Smart - D. Ayton - L. DonÄiÄ - A. Reaves (+11.0/100 over 399 possessions).
Shot profile vs league
LAL
League
Ī
PPS (points per shot)
1.146
1.091
+0.055
xPPS, the shot-diet price*
1.086
1.097
-0.011
Shot-making, pts/100 vs model
+6.0
-0.5
+6.5
Rim share
26.8%
28.4%
-1.6 pp
Mid-range share
11.3%
10.0%
+1.2 pp
Three share
39.4%
41.5%
-2.2 pp
Corner share of threes
25.4%
25.9%
-0.5 pp
Final-4s (rush) shot share
1.8%
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 ā .9).
Personnel (top 8 by volume)
Player
FGA
PPS
xPPS (diet)
Making/100
EB making
RAPM/100
Luka DonÄiÄ
1,457
1.126
0.976
+14.9
+12.1
+1.7
LeBron James
919
1.113
1.102
+1.1
+0.8
+0.7
Austin Reaves
762
1.134
1.016
+11.8
+8.3
+2.4
Deandre Ayton
601
1.341
1.190
+15.1
+11.7
-1.9
Rui Hachimura
597
1.223
1.080
+14.3
+9.1
+0.3
Jake LaRavia
523
1.067
1.139
-7.2
-4.8
-1.0
Marcus Smart
476
0.994
1.067
-7.3
-4.5
+3.8
Jaxson Hayes
262
1.523
1.419
+10.4
+6.4
+0.3
EB making = shot-making regressed to league mean by reliability: the number to trust. RAPM from the opponent-adjusted 2025-26 lineup model (Ā±ā3/100 CI at a season of minutes; treat as descriptive).
Most-used lineups
Lineup
Min
Poss
Net/100
L. James - M. Smart - D. Ayton - L. DonÄiÄ - J. LaRavia
226
479
-5.2
L. James - M. Smart - D. Ayton - L. DonÄiÄ - A. Reaves
188
399
+11.0
L. James - D. Ayton - L. DonÄiÄ - R. Hachimura - A. Reaves