2025-26 regular season · 82 games · 7,244 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: 28.5% of their threes come from the corners (league 25.9%). Run shooters off the corner line first.
Rim-pressure offense: 31.3% of attempts at the rim vs league 28.4%. Wall building beats switching small.
Desmond Bane is a genuine shot-maker: +6.3 pts/100 above expectation after empirical-Bayes shrinkage; contest even the bad shots.
Best shot diet: Wendell Carter Jr. (1.17 xPPS on 637 FGA). The value is where the shots come from; deny the spot, not the release.
Their most-used five that wins its minutes: W. Carter Jr. - D. Bane - F. Wagner - J. Suggs - P. Banchero (+10.8/100 over 415 possessions).
Shot profile vs league
ORL
League
Δ
PPS (points per shot)
1.061
1.091
-0.030
xPPS, the shot-diet price*
1.093
1.097
-0.004
Shot-making, pts/100 vs model
-3.1
-0.5
-2.6
Rim share
31.3%
28.4%
+2.9 pp
Mid-range share
10.0%
10.0%
-0.0 pp
Three share
38.6%
41.5%
-2.9 pp
Corner share of threes
28.5%
25.9%
+2.6 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
Desmond Bane
1,205
1.106
1.027
+7.9
+6.3
+1.7
Paolo Banchero
1,152
0.991
1.065
-7.4
-6.2
-1.0
Anthony Black
772
1.023
1.120
-9.6
-7.3
-0.3
Jalen Suggs
649
1.057
1.071
-1.4
-1.1
+2.5
Wendell Carter Jr.
637
1.137
1.173
-3.7
-2.8
+0.6
Tristan da Silva
620
1.094
1.105
-1.1
-0.9
+1.3
Franz Wagner
507
1.057
1.055
+0.3
-0.0
+0.9
Jett Howard
251
1.052
1.104
-5.2
-2.6
-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
W. Carter Jr. - D. Bane - J. Suggs - P. Banchero - T. da Silva
259
554
+10.6
W. Carter Jr. - D. Bane - J. Suggs - P. Banchero - A. Black
238
523
+8.0
W. Carter Jr. - D. Bane - F. Wagner - J. Suggs - P. Banchero