Databallr Releases a New Stat: zTS%

[E-Balla]

https://databallr.com/zts

This stat exists to take playtype into account when calculating TS%. Basically if a player takes 100% iso shots at 55 TS% their relative TS% (-2.7 rTS%) looks awful, but league average for an isolation possession is 51.3 TS% so they're actually a +3.7 zTS% scorer.

Here's some notable players:
LaMelo goes from a -3.4 rTS% to a -0.3 zTS%
Tatum goes from a -3.7 rTS% to a -0.5 zTS%
Harden goes from a +3.7 rTS% to a +7.2 zTS%
Derrick White goes from a -4.9 rTS% to a -2.2 zTS%
Cade goes from a -1.7 rTS% to a +0.3 zTS%
Brunson goes from a +0.4 rTS% to a +3.0 zTS%
Jaylen Brown goes from a -0.5 rTS% to a +1.3 zTS%
Luka goes from a +3.8 rTS% to a +6.4 zTS%
Shai goes from a +8.6 rTS% to a +11.3 zTS%
Ant goes from a +3.7 rTS% to a +6.2 zTS%
Duren goes from a +11.1 rTS% to a +7.8 zTS%

Among other things explained at the link is that zTS% is strongly correlated with oTS RAPM (so the boost a single player has in team TS%). They've also created a stat called scoring value that's basically using zTS% and scoring volume to find how much scoring value per 100 possessions a player has.

The players over +4 are:
Shai - +6.9
Luka - +4.9
Steph - +4.8
Kawhi - +4.7
Giannis - +4.5
Jokic - +4.3

Which perfectly passes the sniff test. They also have the stat back to 2006 and an interactive chart you can play with to find the best regular seasons (for example I always saw 07 as a better scoring year for Kobe than 08, and ScoreVal agrees with that assessment) since 2006 and the best postseasons since 2014.

[GrindCityHustle]

Good addition for true shooting. Hopefully Nate Duncan starts using it

[cupcakesnake]

Pretty fun stat.
It's a number that uses more data to provide additional context.

Getting boosted by this numbers is kind of a double-edged sword though. It credits you for having a tougher shot diet, but it does raise the question: why is this player taking tougher shots?

Looking at the names E-balla provided, there are a lot of players who's shot selection has never been quite elite.

[Ambrose]

I like it. Definitely something to look at.

[og15]

Pretty fun stat.
It's a number that uses more data to provide additional context.

Getting boosted by this numbers is kind of a double-edged sword though. It credits you for having a tougher shot diet, but it does raise the question: why is this player taking tougher shots?

Looking at the names E-balla provided, there are a lot of players who's shot selection has never been quite elite.

We went the same place .

I thought to myself, okay, it's good to credit the shot difficulty, but then on the other hand, maybe it is a problem that ___ is for example, isolating too much and therefore bringing his TS% down.

Regardless, a cool addition to the statistical toolbox, so that we can in a sense have a number to look at instead of guessing the impact of shot quality.

[Bad Bart]

https://databallr.com/zts

This stat exists to take playtype into account when calculating TS%. Basically if a player takes 100% iso shots at 55 TS% their relative TS% (-2.7 rTS%) looks awful, but league average for an isolation possession is 51.3 TS% so they're actually a +3.7 zTS% scorer.

Here's some notable players:
LaMelo goes from a -3.4 rTS% to a -0.3 zTS%
Tatum goes from a -3.7 rTS% to a -0.5 zTS%
Harden goes from a +3.7 rTS% to a +7.2 zTS%
Derrick White goes from a -4.9 rTS% to a -2.2 zTS%
Cade goes from a -1.7 rTS% to a +0.3 zTS%
Brunson goes from a +0.4 rTS% to a +3.0 zTS%
Jaylen Brown goes from a -0.5 rTS% to a +1.3 zTS%
Luka goes from a +3.8 rTS% to a +6.4 zTS%
Shai goes from a +8.6 rTS% to a +11.3 zTS%
Ant goes from a +3.7 rTS% to a +6.2 zTS%
Duren goes from a +11.1 rTS% to a +7.8 zTS%

Among other things explained at the link is that zTS% is strongly correlated with oTS RAPM (so the boost a single player has in team TS%). They've also created a stat called scoring value that's basically using zTS% and scoring volume to find how much scoring value per 100 possessions a player has.

The players over +4 are:
Shai - +6.9
Luka - +4.9
Steph - +4.8
Kawhi - +4.7
Giannis - +4.5
Jokic - +4.3

Which perfectly passes the sniff test. They also have the stat back to 2006 and an interactive chart you can play with to find the best regular seasons (for example I always saw 07 as a better scoring year for Kobe than 08, and ScoreVal agrees with that assessment) since 2006 and the best postseasons since 2014.

This is great, not all shots are the same. I have been looking at the 'Shooting' section on Bball Reference quite frequently recently and noticed that a lot of players with high usage and lower efficiency are usually assisted on a lot fewer of their shots. That means they're creating their own shots outside of the offense, usually after the play broke down and there's no time to run another. That's naturally going to lead to lower efficiency. Anyway, thanks for sharing.

[YogurtProducer]

Pretty fun stat.
It's a number that uses more data to provide additional context.

Getting boosted by this numbers is kind of a double-edged sword though. It credits you for having a tougher shot diet, but it does raise the question: why is this player taking tougher shots?

Looking at the names E-balla provided, there are a lot of players who's shot selection has never been quite elite.

The Brandon Ingram special. Dude I swear tries to take the hardest, most inefficient, shot possible

[ShouldaPaidBG]

Harden was such a monster

[bovice]

what's considered an 'iso shot'? an unassisted shot?

[E-Balla]

Pretty fun stat.
It's a number that uses more data to provide additional context.

Getting boosted by this numbers is kind of a double-edged sword though. It credits you for having a tougher shot diet, but it does raise the question: why is this player taking tougher shots?

Looking at the names E-balla provided, there are a lot of players who's shot selection has never been quite elite.

Yes but the correlation between zTS add and team TS% is way stronger than that of TS add and team TS%. It's more than twice as strong of a predictor, and it's about as much better than TS% than TS% is than FG% in parsing out the individual value of a player's TS attempts on team TS%. Bad shot selection might seem to correlate with bad decision making, but this is showing that bad shot selection (mind you this is based on playstyle not shot selection, because Harden is towards the top of the chart in scoring role yearly with a great shot selection) is also strongly correlated to your team in general getting easier looks.

If we bring it to an historical example in 2013 Melo was 3rd in the league with a +4.0 zTS Add right under Bron and KD but he was 25th in TS Add under Dwight, Martell Webster, JJ Hickson, Serge Ibaka, and Tyson Chandler (his own teammate) among others. As bad as his shot selection was there's no way anyone but KD and Bron was a better scorer than him that season. I just love this stat for a lot of reasons but the main one is I think it properly gives players credit for making high leverage shots and it can be used to figure out which teams and systems generate easy looks and how that affects players.

[tmorgan]

Makes sense.

What about the legend that is Cam Thomas?

[Daddy 801]

Would be interesting to take it one step farther and have a data set if are the getting good/bad shots in the first half and second half of a shot clock. The elite bucket getters are often tasked with just trying to make something happen after the first few actions have broken down. So even if a guy is getting taking bad shots it may be by design or necessity.

[E-Balla]

Pretty fun stat.
It's a number that uses more data to provide additional context.

Getting boosted by this numbers is kind of a double-edged sword though. It credits you for having a tougher shot diet, but it does raise the question: why is this player taking tougher shots?

Looking at the names E-balla provided, there are a lot of players who's shot selection has never been quite elite.

We went the same place .

I thought to myself, okay, it's good to credit the shot difficulty, but then on the other hand, maybe it is a problem that ___ is for example, isolating too much and therefore bringing his TS% down.

Regardless, a cool addition to the statistical toolbox, so that we can in a sense have a number to look at instead of guessing the impact of shot quality.

Something I noticed that I'll keep an eye on is the team offenses/players that generate the most bad quality looks in the regular season are the most resilient in the playoffs, and the ones that feast on easy looks are easy to stop. The Raptors (-3.0 rORtg so far), Hawks (-5.9 rORtg so far), and Pistons (-11.3 rORtg so far) are the 3 playoff teams that take the easiest shots, and the 3 playoff teams that take the hardest shots are Boston (+8.0 rORtg so far), The Suns (-2.3 rORtg so far), and OKC (+12.6 rORtg so far). When the hard shots stop falling practicing the bad forms of offense might be a winning strategy.

Also it might have to do with playmaking potential as well. There's a major gap in expected efficiency for Cs and PGs. Much larger than the TS% gap between the positions.

[GeorgeMarcus]

Interesting concept, I like it too as long as people understand how to use it and don’t treat it as an efficiency measuring stick

[falcolombardi]

Pretty fun stat.
It's a number that uses more data to provide additional context.

Getting boosted by this numbers is kind of a double-edged sword though. It credits you for having a tougher shot diet, but it does raise the question: why is this player taking tougher shots?

Looking at the names E-balla provided, there are a lot of players who's shot selection has never been quite elite.

I mean sure but at the same time by the nature of the sport the best scorers have to take the tougher shots so the other players can take the easier ones

Shai and jokic are historically effcient volume scorers and okc needs every last bit of shai self created shots to raise their offense

[TheGeneral99]

Pretty fun stat.
It's a number that uses more data to provide additional context.

Getting boosted by this numbers is kind of a double-edged sword though. It credits you for having a tougher shot diet, but it does raise the question: why is this player taking tougher shots?

Looking at the names E-balla provided, there are a lot of players who's shot selection has never been quite elite.

The Brandon Ingram special. Dude I swear tries to take the hardest, most inefficient, shot possible

Yep, but Ingram actually shot 48%fg and 38%3fg during the year which is really good despite him sucking in the playoffs so far.

[Doctor MJ]

Pretty fun stat.
It's a number that uses more data to provide additional context.

Getting boosted by this numbers is kind of a double-edged sword though. It credits you for having a tougher shot diet, but it does raise the question: why is this player taking tougher shots?

Looking at the names E-balla provided, there are a lot of players who's shot selection has never been quite elite.

Yup. Ideally it should be a great stat for deciding who is particularly good at making the shots they take compared to norms, but it essentially normalizes away the "Is this really the best shot available to my team?" component.

[FrodoBaggins]

Great new statistic. FWIW, Amar'e peaks higher in zTS and SV/100 than Dirk in the RS. This provides some further support that Stoudemire may have been the best scoring PF of his generation, as discussed in the thread I made.

2007-08 Stoudemire: +10.2 zTS, 5.1/100 poss SV
2005-06 Nowitzki: +6.9 zTS, 4.4/100 poss SV

[falcolombardi]

Pretty fun stat.
It's a number that uses more data to provide additional context.

Getting boosted by this numbers is kind of a double-edged sword though. It credits you for having a tougher shot diet, but it does raise the question: why is this player taking tougher shots?

Looking at the names E-balla provided, there are a lot of players who's shot selection has never been quite elite.

Yup. Ideally it should be a great stat for deciding who is particularly good at making the shots they take compared to norms, but it essentially normalizes away the "Is this really the best shot available to my team?" component.

On the other hand it puts seasons like shai's in perspective where they achieve historical efficiency in virtually only tough self generated shots which is some insane resiliency and both ceiling and floor raising as tougher shots by definition are the last ones to be taken away by the rival defense

[Hakeem is notable for this]

[ForeverTFC]

Pretty fun stat.
It's a number that uses more data to provide additional context.

Getting boosted by this numbers is kind of a double-edged sword though. It credits you for having a tougher shot diet, but it does raise the question: why is this player taking tougher shots?

Looking at the names E-balla provided, there are a lot of players who's shot selection has never been quite elite.

I had the same thought initially but seeing OP list it side by side with rTS% did a good job of providing that context (both the comparison and the differential). I think a lot of value in marrying the two.