Scouting one-pager: New Orleans Pelicans (NOP)
2025-26 regular season · 82 games · 7,420 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 23.7% of their threes (league 25.9%); their spacing lives higher on the arc.
- Rim-pressure offense: 38.4% of attempts at the rim vs league 28.4%. Wall building beats switching small.
- Zion Williamson is a genuine shot-maker: +4.3 pts/100 above expectation after empirical-Bayes shrinkage; contest even the bad shots.
- Best shot diet: Yves Missi (1.25 xPPS on 294 FGA). The value is where the shots come from; deny the spot, not the release.
- Their most-used five that wins its minutes: S. Bey - H. Jones - T. Murphy III - J. Fears - D. Queen (+6.8/100 over 251 possessions).
Shot profile vs league
| NOP | League | Δ |
|---|
| PPS (points per shot) | 1.054 | 1.091 | -0.037 |
| xPPS, the shot-diet price* | 1.118 | 1.097 | +0.021 |
| Shot-making, pts/100 vs model | -6.3 | -0.5 | -5.8 |
| Rim share | 38.4% | 28.4% | +10.0 pp |
| Mid-range share | 6.9% | 10.0% | -3.1 pp |
| Three share | 35.5% | 41.5% | -6.0 pp |
| Corner share of threes | 23.7% | 25.9% | -2.2 pp |
| Final-4s (rush) shot share | 2.0% | 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 |
|---|
| Trey Murphy III | 1,050 | 1.145 | 1.119 | +2.6 | +1.8 | -0.1 |
| Jeremiah Fears | 1,006 | 0.969 | 1.079 | -11.0 | -8.8 | -1.9 |
| Saddiq Bey | 967 | 1.058 | 1.101 | -4.3 | -3.4 | -0.6 |
| Zion Williamson | 807 | 1.201 | 1.147 | +5.4 | +4.3 | +0.6 |
| Derik Queen | 748 | 0.977 | 1.103 | -12.5 | -9.8 | -2.3 |
| Herbert Jones | 478 | 0.933 | 1.126 | -19.2 | -12.0 | +0.8 |
| Jordan Poole | 444 | 0.959 | 1.054 | -9.5 | -5.6 | -1.6 |
| Yves Missi | 294 | 1.088 | 1.250 | -16.2 | -10.1 | +0.6 |
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 |
|---|
| Z. Williamson - S. Bey - H. Jones - T. Murphy III - D. Queen | 139 | 298 | -5.7 |
| Z. Williamson - S. Bey - T. Murphy III - J. Fears - D. Queen | 118 | 263 | -17.9 |
| S. Bey - H. Jones - T. Murphy III - J. Fears - D. Queen | 117 | 251 | +6.8 |