Scouting one-pager: Memphis Grizzlies (MEM)
2025-26 regular season · 82 games · 7,431 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
- Cam Spencer is a genuine shot-maker: +10.9 pts/100 above expectation after empirical-Bayes shrinkage; contest even the bad shots.
- Best shot diet: GG Jackson (1.14 xPPS on 514 FGA). The value is where the shots come from; deny the spot, not the release.
- Their most-used five that wins its minutes: J. Jackson Jr. - V. Williams Jr. - Z. Edey - J. Wells - C. Coward (+12.7/100 over 213 possessions).
Shot profile vs league
| MEM | League | Δ |
|---|
| PPS (points per shot) | 1.066 | 1.091 | -0.025 |
| xPPS, the shot-diet price* | 1.084 | 1.097 | -0.013 |
| Shot-making, pts/100 vs model | -1.7 | -0.5 | -1.2 |
| Rim share | 25.2% | 28.4% | -3.2 pp |
| Mid-range share | 8.4% | 10.0% | -1.6 pp |
| Three share | 43.6% | 41.5% | +2.1 pp |
| Corner share of threes | 24.0% | 25.9% | -1.9 pp |
| Final-4s (rush) shot share | 1.9% | 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 |
|---|
| Jaylen Wells | 698 | 1.047 | 1.084 | -3.7 | -2.7 | -1.3 |
| Jaren Jackson Jr. | 670 | 1.067 | 1.015 | +5.2 | +3.5 | -0.4 |
| Cedric Coward | 648 | 1.085 | 1.103 | -1.8 | -1.4 | +2.0 |
| Cam Spencer | 556 | 1.209 | 1.023 | +18.5 | +10.9 | +0.7 |
| GG Jackson | 514 | 1.117 | 1.140 | -2.3 | -1.7 | +0.3 |
| Santi Aldama | 476 | 1.105 | 1.088 | +1.7 | +0.8 | -0.1 |
| Jock Landale | 389 | 1.154 | 1.134 | +2.1 | +0.9 | -0.5 |
| Kentavious Caldwell-Pope | 366 | 0.970 | 1.029 | -5.9 | -3.5 | -1.0 |
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 |
|---|
| J. Jackson Jr. - V. Williams Jr. - Z. Edey - J. Wells - C. Coward | 102 | 213 | +12.7 |
| K. Caldwell-Pope - J. Landale - S. Aldama - C. Spencer - J. Wells | 97 | 203 | +8.9 |
| J. Jackson Jr. - J. Morant - S. Aldama - J. Wells - C. Coward | 87 | 199 | -17.6 |