Standings
The main Standings page pairs the East/West tables with two charts. Offensive vs. Defensive Output is a straightforward scatter of points scored vs. points allowed per game — the further right and down a team’s logo sits, the better its two-way output. Shot Quality vs. Shot Making is the more involved one, and the rest of this guide is about that chart.
What it's splitting apart
A team’s eFG% is one number, but it can be good for two very different reasons: the team gets great shots (scheme), or the team makes tough shots (talent). This chart pulls those two things apart so you can tell which one is actually driving a team’s shooting. A team can create elite looks and still shoot them poorly (good process, bad results), or the opposite — live off contested shot-making. One eFG% number can’t tell the difference; this chart can.
The xeFG% formula
Every real shot attempt in the dataset is grouped into a bin by its exact court zone, its distance, and whether it’s a two or a three. Each bin has a league-average make probability for that season — what an average NBA shooter is expected to make from that exact spot, calculated once across the whole league that year.
xeFG% = Σ (league-average make probability × shot value) ÷ (2 × total shots)
Shot value is 2 or 3 depending on the shot type. This is the exact same eFG% formula used everywhere else on the site — just built from the league’s expected points on each shot instead of the team’s actual makes.
Conversion = Actual eFG% − xeFG%
Positive means the team shot better than an average team would have on those exact same looks; negative means worse.
The Offense / Defense toggle
- Offense mode— priced from the team’s own shot attempts. X-axis is shot quality created (xeFG%, i.e. scheme); Y-axis is Conversion (shot-making, i.e. talent).
- Defense mode— the same pricing formula applied to shots the team’s opponents took against them. X-axis is shot quality allowed (further left means the defense forces tougher looks); Y-axis is opponent Conversion vs. expected — negative means opponents made fewer shots than their locations predicted (real contests forcing misses), positive means opponents made more than expected (either bad luck against that defense, or a real hole).
Reading the four quadrants
Offense mode:
- Complete Offense (high quality, high making) — the best quadrant.
- Shot Maker (low quality, high making) — living off tough, contested makes.
- Process Over Results (high quality, low making) — good shots, not falling.
- Needs Help (low quality, low making) — the worst quadrant.
Defense mode:
- Elite Defense (low quality allowed, low makes) — the best quadrant.
- Shot-Luck Risk (low quality allowed, high makes) — good scheme, opponents still converting.
- Volatile Defense (high quality allowed, low makes) — tough looks given up, but not yet punished.
- Defensive Risk (high quality allowed, high makes) — the worst quadrant.
How far back the data goes
This chart covers every season back to 1996-97— that’s when zone-level shot-location tracking begins in the dataset, the same era boundary as the shot charts elsewhere on the site. Seasons before that don’t have the court-zone detail this chart needs.