The Stat Nerd’s Top Scorers — Jan. 15
For those new to the rankings, every other week I rank the top scorers in basketball by the True Shooting Percentage statistic. In order to weed out the small sample sizes and the low usage players, I filter players who have not played at least half of the maximum number of games (20); players who play less than 20 minutes per game; and players with usage rates under 20 percent. I break down the True Shooting Percentage statistic here and further explain the filters here. Here are this week’s rankings (heading into yesterday’s games):
| Rk | Player | TS% | G | MPG | USG% |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | LeBron James | 0.672 | 36 | 36.8 | 29.5 |
| 2 | Kevin Durant | 0.627 | 37 | 37.6 | 31.1 |
| 3 | Marco Belinelli | 0.626 | 38 | 23.0 | 19.5 |
| 4 | Jeremy Lin | 0.604 | 29 | 31.2 | 20.8 |
| 5 | James Harden | 0.600 | 33 | 38.7 | 27.9 |
| 6 | J.J. Redick | 0.598 | 18 | 27.9 | 22.7 |
| 7 | Darren Collison | 0.594 | 39 | 20.4 | 20.1 |
| 8 | Chris Bosh | 0.594 | 36 | 30.6 | 22.4 |
| 9 | Dirk Nowitzki | 0.592 | 38 | 32.4 | 27.0 |
| 10 | Goran Dragic | 0.592 | 34 | 35.2 | 23.7 |
| 11 | Manu Ginobili | 0.589 | 35 | 24.1 | 23.7 |
| 12 | Kevin Love | 0.588 | 36 | 36.1 | 27.9 |
| 13 | Al Horford | 0.588 | 29 | 33.0 | 24.6 |
| 14 | Dwight Howard | 0.587 | 39 | 34.2 | 24.2 |
| 15 | Isaiah Thomas | 0.587 | 35 | 32.4 | 26.0 |
| 16 | Eric Bledsoe | 0.587 | 24 | 33.5 | 24.4 |
| 17 | Arron Afflalo | 0.586 | 35 | 37.5 | 24.2 |
| 18 | Kyle Lowry | 0.585 | 36 | 36.1 | 19.7 |
| 19 | Dwyane Wade | 0.585 | 28 | 33.6 | 27.9 |
| 20 | Deron Williams | 0.585 | 22 | 30.2 | 22.3 |
| 21 | Damian Lillard | 0.583 | 37 | 36.2 | 24.8 |
| 22 | Blake Griffin | 0.580 | 39 | 36.2 | 27.0 |
| 23 | Chris Paul | 0.578 | 34 | 34.6 | 24.9 |
| 24 | David Lee | 0.577 | 39 | 34.3 | 24.1 |
| 25 | Paul George | 0.577 | 36 | 36.4 | 27.8 |
Other Noteworthy: The entire San Antonio Spurs team deserves a nod. Not only is newcomer Marco Belinelli ranked third behind only LeBron James and Kevin Durant; Manu Ginobili ranks 11th; both Patty Mills and Tiago Splitter would rank in the top 25 if it were not for low usage rates; and Tony Parker, Kawhi Leonard and Boris Diaw and not too far behind the top 25 percentages (and both Parker and Diaw have spent time in the top 10).
On a more somber note, Stephen Curry has struggled shooting recently and I believe this is the first time both Splash Brothers are absent from the top 25 — though Warriors fans can take solace in David Lee’s entrance into the top 25.
Also wanted to quickly shout out Basketball-Reference for providing the numbers that I use for these rankings. I know they probably get a lot of props, but the fact that they put out all of these numbers and allow free access to them is work deserving of much praise.
Has anybody noticed Kyrie Irving and Carmelo Anthony have been missing from this list all year?
I’ll save that for another article.