So, I got curious about this ‘usage rate’ thing in basketball. Heard it thrown around a lot, basically showing how much of the team’s plays a guy is finishing while he’s on the court. Decided to figure out how to actually calculate it myself, not just rely on stats sites.
First thing, I needed the raw numbers for a specific player. Had to dig up:
- Field Goal Attempts (FGA)
- Free Throw Attempts (FTA)
- Turnovers (TOV)
- Minutes Played (MP)
Okay, got those for the player I was looking at. But then I realized, this is a rate, right? So it has to be relative to the team’s performance while that player was actually playing. This was the tricky part.
I needed the team’s total stats too, but only for the minutes the player was on the floor. This info isn’t always listed directly, sometimes you gotta estimate or find play-by-play data if you want it super accurate. For my little project, I found the main team stats for the game:
- Team Field Goal Attempts (Tm FGA)
- Team Free Throw Attempts (Tm FTA)
- Team Turnovers (Tm TOV)
- Team Minutes Played (usually 240 for a standard game, or 265 for OT, etc.)
Putting it Together
Alright, numbers acquired. Now the calculation itself. Looked up the formula people use. It seemed a bit much at first glance, but breaking it down made sense.
The core idea is figuring out how many possessions a player ‘ends’ (by shooting, getting fouled and shooting free throws, or turning the ball over) compared to how many the team ‘ends’ while that player is in.
Step 1: Player’s Possessions Ended
I took the player’s FGA. Added the player’s TOV. Then added the player’s FTA, but multiplied by 0.44 first. Apparently, that 0.44 accounts for trips to the line that involve multiple free throws but only count as one possession (like shooting fouls, and-ones don’t count here as the FGA is already counted). So, it was like:
Player Possessions = FGA + (FTA 0.44) + TOV
Punched those numbers into my calculator.
Step 2: Team’s Possessions Ended (Adjusted for Player’s Time)
Did a similar thing for the team stats:
Team Possessions = Tm FGA + (Tm FTA 0.44) + Tm TOV
Got that number too.
Step 3: The Actual Usage Rate Calculation
This is where the minutes played came in. The final formula looked something like this:
Usage Rate % = [ (Player Possessions) (Team Total Minutes) ] / [ (Team Possessions) (Player Minutes Played) ] 100
So, I plugged in the numbers I calculated in Step 1 and Step 2, along with the player’s minutes and the team’s total minutes for the game.</ Multiplied the whole thing by 100 to get a percentage.
And bam, got the usage rate. It definitely took gathering a few specific stats and doing the math carefully, but wasn’t rocket science. It gives a pretty solid picture of who’s dominating the ball on offense when they’re out there. Felt good to actually work it out myself instead of just reading it somewhere.