Scouting one-pager: Phoenix Suns (PHX)
2025-26 regular season · 82 games · 7,389 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 22.5% of their threes (league 25.9%); their spacing lives higher on the arc.
- Volume-three profile: 45.3% of attempts from deep (league 41.5%).
- Royce O'Neale is a genuine shot-maker: +6.3 pts/100 above expectation after empirical-Bayes shrinkage; contest even the bad shots.
- Best shot diet: Mark Williams (1.31 xPPS on 438 FGA). The value is where the shots come from; deny the spot, not the release.
- Their most-used five that wins its minutes: D. Booker - R. O'Neale - J. Green - C. Gillespie - O. Ighodaro (+10.8/100 over 268 possessions).
Shot profile vs league
| PHX | League | Δ |
|---|
| PPS (points per shot) | 1.074 | 1.091 | -0.018 |
| xPPS, the shot-diet price* | 1.080 | 1.097 | -0.016 |
| Shot-making, pts/100 vs model | -0.7 | -0.5 | -0.1 |
| Rim share | 23.4% | 28.4% | -5.0 pp |
| Mid-range share | 12.2% | 10.0% | +2.2 pp |
| Three share | 45.3% | 41.5% | +3.8 pp |
| Corner share of threes | 22.5% | 25.9% | -3.4 pp |
| Final-4s (rush) shot share | 2.0% | 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 |
|---|
| Devin Booker | 1,198 | 1.013 | 0.996 | +1.8 | +1.3 | +3.6 |
| Dillon Brooks | 959 | 1.002 | 0.985 | +1.8 | +1.2 | -1.4 |
| Collin Gillespie | 842 | 1.112 | 1.024 | +8.8 | +5.8 | +3.0 |
| Grayson Allen | 667 | 1.045 | 1.025 | +2.0 | +1.1 | +0.2 |
| Royce O'Neale | 625 | 1.181 | 1.072 | +10.9 | +6.3 | -3.0 |
| Jordan Goodwin | 555 | 1.027 | 1.098 | -7.1 | -4.7 | +0.8 |
| Jalen Green | 512 | 0.982 | 1.071 | -8.8 | -5.8 | -0.2 |
| Mark Williams | 438 | 1.290 | 1.313 | -2.3 | -1.8 | -0.5 |
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 |
|---|
| D. Booker - R. O'Neale - D. Brooks - M. Williams - C. Gillespie | 267 | 577 | +10.1 |
| D. Booker - R. O'Neale - J. Green - C. Gillespie - O. Ighodaro | 123 | 268 | +10.8 |
| D. Booker - R. O'Neale - D. Brooks - G. Allen - M. Williams | 116 | 257 | +2.3 |