Four of the advanced stats on every player card are Basketball-Reference's own models of a player's all-around value. This page says what each one measures, mostly in Basketball-Reference's own words, quoted from its explanation pages and credited. Every quotation is checked, word for word, against a saved copy of the page it comes from before this page is built.
The shot maps do not measure any of these four, and this site has no second source to check them against. They are shown as Basketball-Reference publishes them. The one advanced figure this site recomputes itself is eFG%, from the shot data.
A per-minute rating that adds up a player's positive accomplishments and subtracts the negative ones, scaled so that the league average is 15 in every season.
In Basketball-Reference's words:
The Player Efficiency Rating (PER) is a per-minute rating developed by ESPN.com columnist John Hollinger.Calculating PER, Basketball-Reference
In John's words, "The PER sums up all a player's positive accomplishments, subtracts the negative accomplishments, and returns a per-minute rating of a player's performance."Calculating PER, Basketball-Reference
The step above sets the league average to 15 for all seasons.Calculating PER, Basketball-Reference
The column headers on the season pages:
Credit for a team's success, divided among its players and counted in wins. One Win Share is one win, a team's players add up to roughly its win total, and it splits into offense (OWS) and defense (DWS). WS/48 is the same per 48 minutes.
In Basketball-Reference's words:
Win Shares is a player statistic which attempts to divvy up credit for team success to the individuals on the team.NBA Win Shares, Basketball-Reference
the sum of player win shares on a given team will be roughly equal to that team's win total for the seasonNBA Win Shares, Basketball-Reference
In my system, one win is equivalent to one Win Share.NBA Win Shares, Basketball-Reference
In my system, a player can have negative Win Shares.NBA Win Shares, Basketball-Reference
a player with negative Win Shares was so poor that he essentially took away wins that his teammates had generated.NBA Win Shares, Basketball-Reference
Offensive Win Shares are credited to players based on Dean Oliver's points produced and offensive possessions.NBA Win Shares, Basketball-Reference
Crediting Defensive Win Shares to players is based on Dean Oliver's Defensive Rating.NBA Win Shares, Basketball-Reference
The column headers on the season pages:
Points per 100 possessions a player adds above a league-average player, estimated from the box score. 0 is average, and it ignores how much he played.
In Basketball-Reference's words:
Box Plus/Minus, Version 2.0 (BPM) is a basketball box score-based metric that estimates a basketball player's contribution to the team when that player is on the court.Box Plus/Minus 2.0 (BPM), Basketball-Reference
BPM uses a player's box score information, position, and the team's overall performance to estimate the player's contribution in points above league average per 100 possessions played.Box Plus/Minus 2.0 (BPM), Basketball-Reference
BPM does not take into account playing time -- it is purely a rate stat!Box Plus/Minus 2.0 (BPM), Basketball-Reference
League average is defined as 0.0, meaning 0 points above average or below average.Box Plus/Minus 2.0 (BPM), Basketball-Reference
Box Plus/Minus is good at measuring offense and solid overall, but the defensive numbers in particular should not be considered definitive.Box Plus/Minus 2.0 (BPM), Basketball-Reference
Basketball-Reference's scale for BPM:
The column headers on the season pages:
BPM turned into an estimate of a player's overall contribution: how much he added over a replacement-level player (a BPM of -2.0), scaled by how much he played.
In Basketball-Reference's words:
Value over Replacement Player (VORP) converts the BPM rate into an estimate of each player's overall contribution to the team, measured vs. what a theoretical "replacement player" would provide, where the "replacement player" is defined as a player on minimum salary or not a normal member of a team's rotation.Box Plus/Minus 2.0 (BPM), Basketball-Reference
The conclusion was to establish -2.0 as replacement level for the NBA, measured in terms of points above or below average per 100 possessions.Box Plus/Minus 2.0 (BPM), Basketball-Reference
So, to calculate VORP, the formula is simply: [BPM - (-2.0)] * (% of possessions played) * (team games/82).Box Plus/Minus 2.0 (BPM), Basketball-Reference
To convert VORP to an estimate of wins over replacement, simply multiply by 2.7.Box Plus/Minus 2.0 (BPM), Basketball-Reference
The column headers on the season pages:
| Page | Address | Retrieved | sha256 |
|---|---|---|---|
| Calculating PER | https://www.basketball-reference.com/about/per.html | 2026-09-27 | 8ced33ef14ae |
| NBA Win Shares | https://www.basketball-reference.com/about/ws.html | 2026-09-27 | 103838c96d87 |
| Box Plus/Minus 2.0 (BPM) | https://www.basketball-reference.com/about/bpm2.html | 2026-09-27 | ac82097b5320 |