True Shooting Percentage (TS%) Explained, With an Example

True shooting percentage (TS%) answers one question: how many points does a player score for every shooting possession he uses? Plain field-goal percentage ignores that a three is worth more than a two, and it ignores free throws entirely. TS% folds all three ways of scoring into one number, which is why it is the standard scoring-efficiency stat on Basketball-Reference, NBA.com and on every HoopVantage player page.

The formula

Both the NBA.com stats glossary and the Basketball-Reference glossary define it the same way:

TS% = PTS / (2 × TSA), where TSA = FGA + 0.44 × FTA (true shooting attempts).

The 2 in the denominator scales the result so it reads like a field-goal percentage: a player who scored exactly 2 points on every shooting attempt would have a TS% of 100%.

Why free throws count as 0.44

Free-throw attempts do not map one-to-one onto possessions. A shooting foul on a two gives two attempts for one possession, so each attempt is roughly half a possession. And-ones add a free throw without adding a possession, technical free throws use no possession of their own, and a foul on a three-point shot gives three attempts for one possession. Averaged over all of those situations, a free-throw attempt works out to a little under half a possession, and 0.44 is the conventional estimate used by both glossaries. The same 0.44 appears in usage rate and in possession estimates.

Worked example

Take two hypothetical players who each score 30 points.

• Player A makes 10 of 20 field-goal attempts, 4 of them threes, and 6 of 10 free throws: 6 twos (12) + 4 threes (12) + 6 free throws = 30 points.
• Player B makes 12 of 25 field-goal attempts, 2 of them threes, and 4 of 4 free throws: 10 twos (20) + 2 threes (6) + 4 free throws = 30 points.

Player A: FG% = 10 / 20 = 50.0%. True shooting attempts = 20 + 0.44 × 10 = 24.4. TS% = 30 / (2 × 24.4) = 30 / 48.8 = 61.5%.

Player B: FG% = 12 / 25 = 48.0%. True shooting attempts = 25 + 0.44 × 4 = 26.76. TS% = 30 / (2 × 26.76) = 30 / 53.52 = 56.1%.

Same points, but Player A needed about 2.4 fewer shooting possessions to get them. Over a season that gap is the difference between an efficient scorer and a volume scorer.

TS% vs FG% vs eFG%

Effective field-goal percentage sits between the two: eFG% = (FGM + 0.5 × 3PM) / FGA. It credits a made three as 1.5 made twos but still leaves out free throws. For Player A, eFG% = (10 + 0.5 × 4) / 20 = 60.0%; for Player B, (12 + 0.5 × 2) / 25 = 52.0%. eFG% is one of Dean Oliver's four factors at team level, because free throws are counted separately there as free-throw rate.

• FG%: made shots per shot. Blind to threes and free throws.
• eFG%: points from field goals per shot, divided by 2. Blind to free throws.
• TS%: all points per shooting possession, divided by 2. The most complete of the three.

How to read it

TS% only makes sense next to the league average for the same season, because league-wide shooting has risen as teams took more threes. Compare a player with the league average and with players in a similar role; a big man finishing at the rim and a guard creating his own shot face very different shot difficulty. Also read it alongside volume: holding a high TS% on a high usage rate is much harder than on a handful of open looks, and small samples swing wildly.

What TS% does not tell you

TS% says nothing about turnovers, assists or defense, and it treats every point the same whether it came in a close game or in garbage time. It also counts free throws only through attempts, so it slightly misjudges players with unusually many and-ones or technical free throws. That is why HoopVantage's player impact rating combines scoring efficiency with the rest of the box score and on/off data rather than leaning on TS% alone.