Tuesday, May 10, 2011

Daily Dictionary: Effective Field Goal Percentage

Daily Dictionary: Effective Field Goal Percentage (eFG%)


The idea behind eFG% is simple - 3 point field goals are worth 50% more than 2 point field goals.  The calculation is also simple: eFG% = (FG + 0.5 * 3P FG) / FGA


Today's post will focus solely on eFG% in the context of individual players.  Over the next few days we'll talk about team eFG% and how we can use eFG% against to analyze team defense.


To help illustrate this point, we've included a top 12 list.

1. Nene Hilario - .615
2. Dwight Howard - .593
3. Arron Afflalo - .581
4. Richard Jefferson - .579
5. Ray Allen - .577
6. Emeka Ofakor - .573
7. Lamar Odom - .568
8. Marcin Gortat - .561
9. Jared Dudley - .560
10. Al Horford - .558
11. Ty Lawson - .553
12t. Stephen Curry - .551
12t. Paul Pierce - .551
12t. Greg Monroe - .551

The styles of play represented by this list are pretty diverse - we have inside scorers in Nene, Dwight, Okafor, Gortat, Horford and Monroe.  Interestingly enough, these have the 6 highest field goal percentages in the league.  This is a pretty simple connection to make, as none of these players take 3 pointers with any frequency whatsoever.

Outside of Lamar Odom, the remaining players on this list are all guys who shoot a high number of threes at a high percentage.

Afflalo - 42.3% on 3.6 attempts/game
Jefferson - 44% on 3.8 attempts/game
Allen - 44.4% on 4.7 attempts/game
Dudley - 41.5% on 3.1 attempts/game
Lawson - 40.4% on 2.1 attempts/game
Curry - 44.2% on 4.6 attempts/game
Pierce - 37.4% on 3.7 attempts/game

Like True Shooting, eFG% attempts to compare the offensive efficiencies of different types of players, and in doing so, highlights the deficiencies of traditional FG%.

2 comments:

  1. What is better, true shooting % or eFG?

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  2. Matt,

    For an individual, we prefer to use true shooting % because it incorporates free throws. The ability to get to the line with a high frequency is an extremely valuable skill - one that is often neglected when solely focusing on more traditional box score stats such as field goal % and points/game.

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