Sports Reference Blog

PI+: Player Shooting Splits & Shot Charts

Posted by Neil on March 7, 2012

Watching this video made me nostalgic for vintage, early-2000s Vince Carter:

That's why I'm going to use Carter's finest season, 2001 (when he posted a career-high 25.0 PER, 12.9 Win Shares, and +6.3 SPM), as my example to take you through the PI+ Shooting Splits & Shot Charts.

First, go to the PI+ main page. In the box on the right, type in Carter's name, and select "Shooting Splits & Shot Charts". Click "Go to page". Then select 2000-01 from the seasonal drop-down:

In the chart is every shot Carter hoisted during that fateful 2001 season -- green circles are makes, red x's are misses. Mouse over the x's and o's for greater details about each shot, including the date of the game, the opponent, when the shot was taken, the exact distance, and the score at the time.

You can also see the data distilled into chart form on the left side of the page. Shots are broken down in many different ways, whether by distance, shot type, opponent, score, etc. And by clicking a category in the table, you can drill down to see all shots that match the selected criteria; for instance, here are Vince's playoff shots. From there, you can go even further by selecting a 2nd split within the original playoff split -- let's say road playoff shots.

The bottom line is that the Player Shooting Splits & Shot Charts allow you to call up a player's shooting stats in various situations, complete with a visualization that lets you see the places on the court from which they most frequently operate.

3 Responses to “PI+: Player Shooting Splits & Shot Charts”

  1. jj6 Says:

    Is there a way to see how many points they scored during those splits like points in the 4th quarter?

  2. Neil Says:

    Unfortunately, the shot finder doesn't include free throws yet, so you can only calculate points scored from the field.

  3. Ben Says:

    Awesome. So the numbers would be less random, is it possible to implement career stats for the shooting splits?