Scouting one-pager: Toronto Raptors (TOR)
2025-26 regular season · 82 games · 7,250 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: 28.0% of their threes come from the corners (league 25.9%). Run shooters off the corner line first.
- Brandon Ingram is a genuine shot-maker: +2.8 pts/100 above expectation after empirical-Bayes shrinkage; contest even the bad shots.
- Best shot diet: Sandro Mamukelashvili (1.21 xPPS on 631 FGA). The value is where the shots come from; deny the spot, not the release.
- Their most-used five that wins its minutes: B. Ingram - S. Barnes - S. Mamukelashvili - J. Walter - J. Shead (+10.2/100 over 197 possessions).
Shot profile vs league
| TOR | League | Δ |
|---|
| PPS (points per shot) | 1.093 | 1.091 | +0.001 |
| xPPS, the shot-diet price* | 1.124 | 1.097 | +0.028 |
| Shot-making, pts/100 vs model | -3.2 | -0.5 | -2.6 |
| Rim share | 30.2% | 28.4% | +1.8 pp |
| Mid-range share | 12.0% | 10.0% | +1.9 pp |
| Three share | 36.3% | 41.5% | -5.2 pp |
| Corner share of threes | 28.0% | 25.9% | +2.1 pp |
| Final-4s (rush) shot share | 1.7% | 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 |
|---|
| Brandon Ingram | 1,288 | 1.058 | 1.024 | +3.5 | +2.8 | -1.6 |
| Scottie Barnes | 1,123 | 1.074 | 1.121 | -4.7 | -4.0 | +2.5 |
| Immanuel Quickley | 905 | 1.083 | 1.045 | +3.8 | +2.6 | +0.6 |
| RJ Barrett | 816 | 1.100 | 1.138 | -3.8 | -3.0 | +1.7 |
| Sandro Mamukelashvili | 631 | 1.228 | 1.206 | +2.2 | +1.3 | +1.9 |
| Jamal Shead | 504 | 0.901 | 1.070 | -16.9 | -10.7 | +2.8 |
| Ja'Kobe Walter | 404 | 1.163 | 1.179 | -1.6 | -1.1 | -1.4 |
| Gradey Dick | 384 | 0.984 | 1.143 | -15.9 | -9.4 | +1.3 |
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 |
|---|
| B. Ingram - J. Poeltl - R. Barrett - I. Quickley - S. Barnes | 354 | 760 | +8.6 |
| B. Ingram - R. Barrett - I. Quickley - S. Barnes - C. Murray-Boyles | 160 | 343 | +3.8 |
| B. Ingram - S. Barnes - S. Mamukelashvili - J. Walter - J. Shead | 91 | 197 | +10.2 |