Somebody tells you a player shot 50% last night and you nod. Efficient. Smart shots. A good night.
Slow down. Shooting percentage is one of the most misleading numbers in basketball. It looks like it measures efficiency, but it leaves out two things that decide whether a player actually helped his team win. It hides how many shots he took, and it hides where he took them from.
50% Can Score Fewer Points Than 40%
Here's the trap. Efficiency feels like it should mean "more points." It doesn't always.
Take two players. Player A shoots 50% and takes 20 shots. That's 10 makes, 20 points. Clean line. Everybody calls him efficient.
Player B shoots 40% and takes 30 shots. That's 12 makes, 24 points. Lower percentage. More points.
Player B scored more while looking worse on paper. The percentage rewarded the guy who did less of the thing percentage is supposed to measure: putting the ball in the basket.
This is why volume matters. A high percentage on a tiny number of shots is easy. The hard part is staying efficient while carrying a heavy load. Percentage alone can't see the difference, so it punishes the players who do the most work.
The Number Changes Completely by Shot Type
Now the bigger problem. Not all shots are the same shot, but field goal percentage treats them like they are.
A layup and a contested midrange jumper both count as one attempt. Make either and your percentage goes up by the same amount. That's absurd when you look at the actual odds.
Shots at the rim go in around 65 to 70% of the time. Midrange jumpers land around 40%. Threes hover near 36% league-wide, but each make is worth an extra point.
So a player who lives at the rim will post a gorgeous field goal percentage no matter how good he is. A center who only dunks might shoot 70%. That doesn't make him a better scorer than a guard shooting 44%. It means he takes the easiest shots on the floor.
Flip it. A player who takes a lot of midrange jumpers will look mediocre even if he's making smart, in-rhythm shots. His 43% from the midrange might be elite for that shot. The raw number won't tell you that.
Why Coaches Care About Shot Quality, Not Percentage
Walk into an NBA film room and nobody is celebrating a high field goal percentage on its own. They're asking a better question: are we getting good shots?
Shot quality is the whole game. A wide-open three from the corner is a good shot even when it misses. A contested midrange fadeaway is a bad shot even when it goes in. Coaches grade the decision, not just the result.
That's the opposite of how field goal percentage works. Percentage only sees outcomes. It can't tell a lucky make from a smart attempt, and it can't tell an unlucky miss from a dumb one.
Good teams chase rim attempts and threes. They avoid the long two, the least valuable shot in basketball. A player who racks up makes on midrange jumpers might have a fine percentage and still be hurting the offense by taking shots the team doesn't want.
What to Use Instead
If field goal percentage lies, what tells the truth? Two things.
The first is true shooting percentage, or TS%. It folds in threes and free throws and weights everything by points, not just makes. A made three counts more than a made two because it's worth more. Free throws count because they're points too. TS% exists for exactly this reason: regular percentage treats a three like a layup, and TS% refuses to. We broke it down in true shooting percentage explained.
The second is points per possession, or its cousin points per shot attempt. This answers the only question that matters: when this player uses a possession, how many points does the team get? It captures volume and value at the same time. No hiding behind a small sample of easy looks.
Both numbers fix the core flaw. They stop treating every shot as equal and they stop ignoring how much a player is actually doing.
You don't need to memorize formulas. Just retrain the instinct. When you hear a shooting percentage, ask two questions before you judge it. How many shots? From where?
Common Questions
Why is shooting percentage misleading in basketball?
Because it ignores volume and shot location. A player can post a high percentage by taking a few easy shots near the rim, while a higher-volume scorer who takes tougher shots looks worse even though he produces more points. The number measures makes, not value.
Can a player with a lower shooting percentage be the better scorer?
Yes. A 40% shooter on 30 attempts scores more than a 50% shooter on 20 attempts. Volume matters, and staying efficient under a heavy load is harder than padding a percentage on a handful of looks.
What is a good shooting percentage in the NBA?
It depends entirely on shot type. Around 65 to 70% is normal at the rim, near 40% is normal for midrange, and roughly 36% is league average from three. A single field goal percentage smashes all of that together, which is why it's hard to read on its own.
What stat is better than field goal percentage?
True shooting percentage and points per possession. TS% accounts for the extra value of threes and free throws. Points per possession tells you how much a player produces every time he uses a possession. Both beat raw field goal percentage.
Final Word
Field goal percentage isn't useless. It's just incomplete, and incomplete numbers fool confident people. The fans who read the game well stopped trusting the headline percentage a long time ago.
If you like thinking about stats this way and want to test your reads against other fans, that's what we built GAGE for.