2025-26 regular season · 82 games · 7,328 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: 31.4% of their threes come from the corners (league 25.9%). Run shooters off the corner line first.
Jalen Brunson is a genuine shot-maker: +5.4 pts/100 above expectation after empirical-Bayes shrinkage; contest even the bad shots.
Best shot diet: OG Anunoby (1.22 xPPS on 804 FGA). The value is where the shots come from; deny the spot, not the release.
Their most-used five that wins its minutes: K. Towns - J. Hart - M. Bridges - J. Brunson - M. McBride (+18.7/100 over 246 possessions).
Shot profile vs league
NYK
League
Δ
PPS (points per shot)
1.115
1.091
+0.023
xPPS, the shot-diet price*
1.115
1.097
+0.018
Shot-making, pts/100 vs model
+0.0
-0.5
+0.5
Rim share
28.2%
28.4%
-0.2 pp
Mid-range share
11.4%
10.0%
+1.3 pp
Three share
42.8%
41.5%
+1.2 pp
Corner share of threes
31.4%
25.9%
+5.5 pp
Final-4s (rush) shot share
1.8%
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
Jalen Brunson
1,475
1.066
1.000
+6.6
+5.4
+1.6
Karl-Anthony Towns
1,032
1.111
1.141
-3.0
-2.5
+2.3
Mikal Bridges
963
1.142
1.125
+1.7
+1.2
+0.1
OG Anunoby
804
1.163
1.217
-5.4
-4.1
+3.2
Josh Hart
592
1.186
1.132
+5.4
+3.4
+0.1
Jordan Clarkson
526
1.034
1.066
-3.1
-2.2
+0.2
Miles McBride
404
1.124
1.066
+5.8
+2.7
+2.7
Landry Shamet
364
1.157
1.151
+0.5
-0.1
+1.8
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
K. Towns - O. Anunoby - J. Hart - M. Bridges - J. Brunson
541
1,131
+1.8
K. Towns - O. Anunoby - M. Bridges - J. Brunson - L. Shamet
119
262
+2.3
K. Towns - J. Hart - M. Bridges - J. Brunson - M. McBride