Findings / Rim deterrence
Who bends the shot chart: a rim-deterrence leaderboard
On/off split from the real NBA zone shot-mix cache: for each player, compare the opponent's share of field-goal attempts taken at the rim while the player is on court vs off court, floored at 500 on-court minutes, ranked ascending by the on-minus-off delta.
rim frequency deterrence delta = rim_share_allowed_on - rim_share_allowed_off; negative means the opponent attacks the rim less often with the player on the floor.
Who makes opponents stop attacking the rim: a transparent on/off rim-deterrence leaderboard -- and the eye test agrees.
2025-26
n qualified (min_on ≥ 500) = 370
| Rank | Player | Min | Rim share on | Rim share off | Delta |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Victor Wembanyama | 2,489 | 0.25 | 0.3118 | -0.0618 |
| 2 | Grant Williams | 625.4 | 0.2611 | 0.3206 | -0.0595 |
| 3 | Dorian Finney-Smith | 620.3 | 0.2498 | 0.3043 | -0.0545 |
| 4 | Jaren Jackson Jr. | 1,384.2 | 0.2484 | 0.2997 | -0.0513 |
| 5 | Tyrese Martin | 696 | 0.2732 | 0.3234 | -0.0502 |
| 6 | Cedric Coward | 1,524.6 | 0.2644 | 0.3136 | -0.0492 |
| 7 | Drew Eubanks | 552.3 | 0.2643 | 0.3116 | -0.0473 |
| 8 | Kyshawn George | 1,390.8 | 0.2674 | 0.3134 | -0.046 |
| 9 | Rudy Gobert | 2,357.3 | 0.3047 | 0.3485 | -0.0438 |
| 10 | Donovan Clingan | 2,015.3 | 0.2522 | 0.2947 | -0.0425 |
| 11 | Daniel Gafford | 1,139.1 | 0.2614 | 0.3006 | -0.0392 |
| 12 | OG Anunoby | 2,685.7 | 0.2865 | 0.3248 | -0.0383 |
| 13 | Steven Adams | 730.5 | 0.2445 | 0.2825 | -0.038 |
| 14 | Lauri Markkanen | 1,442.6 | 0.2377 | 0.275 | -0.0373 |
| 15 | Marcus Smart | 1,768 | 0.2802 | 0.3163 | -0.0361 |
Scroll horizontally for all columns.
2024-25
n qualified (min_on ≥ 500) = 387
| Rank | Player | Min | Rim share on | Rim share off | Delta |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Rudy Gobert | 2,388.5 | 0.2785 | 0.3417 | -0.0632 |
| 2 | Zach Collins | 552 | 0.2591 | 0.3184 | -0.0593 |
| 3 | Bogdan Bogdanović | 597.9 | 0.2665 | 0.3256 | -0.0591 |
| 4 | Victor Wembanyama | 1,527.2 | 0.2734 | 0.3275 | -0.0541 |
| 5 | Joel Embiid | 574.3 | 0.23 | 0.2826 | -0.0526 |
| 6 | Ivica Zubac | 2,624.4 | 0.2624 | 0.3139 | -0.0515 |
| 7 | OG Anunoby | 2,705.8 | 0.2788 | 0.3235 | -0.0447 |
| 8 | Steven Adams | 795.5 | 0.2478 | 0.2922 | -0.0444 |
| 9 | Jaylin Williams | 784.1 | 0.2131 | 0.2571 | -0.044 |
| 10 | Quinten Post | 685.7 | 0.2566 | 0.3005 | -0.0439 |
| 11 | Josh Hart | 2,896.8 | 0.2841 | 0.3276 | -0.0435 |
| 12 | Jonas Valančiūnas | 541.4 | 0.2516 | 0.2916 | -0.04 |
| 13 | Draymond Green | 1,983.3 | 0.2444 | 0.2837 | -0.0393 |
| 14 | Nikola Jokić | 2,570.9 | 0.2587 | 0.2971 | -0.0384 |
| 15 | Georges Niang | 1,053.3 | 0.2557 | 0.2937 | -0.038 |
Scroll horizontally for all columns.
The eye test agrees
Wembanyama, Gobert, Jaren Jackson Jr. -- the names at the top of this list are the names scouts already point to. That is the point of a transparent on/off number: it recovers what the eye test already knows, in public, from the shot-mix data itself.
Confounds / notes
- roster confound: teammates and defensive scheme are bundled into the on-court delta -- this is descriptive on-court association, not isolated individual causation
- opponent-raw: no shot-quality or opponent-strength model
- min_on >= 500 floor applied -- on/off is noisy for small on-court samples, so bench players below the floor are excluded
- Results describe on-court rim attempts and shooting rates in the stated observation window.
Observation window
2025-26, 2024-25 -- complete NBA seasons from the local stint/zone-onoff cache.