If you’ve watched a Dallas Mavericks broadcast lately or scrolled NBA Twitter, you’ve probably run into terms like “true shooting,” “PER,” or “net rating” and nodded along without being totally sure what they mean. Advanced stats can sound intimidating, but most of them exist to answer simple questions the basic box score can’t. This guide breaks down the ones worth knowing, in plain English, using the Mavs to make them make sense. By the end, you’ll watch games with a sharper eye — and sound smart doing it.
Why basic stats aren’t enough
Points, rebounds, and assists are fine, but they miss a lot. A player who scores 25 points on 30 shots isn’t as valuable as one who scores 25 on 15 shots, yet the box score just says “25 points” for both. Advanced stats were built to capture efficiency and impact — how much a player actually helps his team win, not just how gaudy his raw numbers look. Here are the ones that matter most.
True Shooting Percentage (TS%)
This is the single most useful shooting stat, and a great place to start. Regular field-goal percentage treats a three-pointer and a two-pointer as equal, which they obviously aren’t, and it ignores free throws entirely. True shooting fixes that by accounting for twos, threes, and free throws all at once to measure how efficiently a player scores.
A TS% around 58–60% is very good; anything above that is elite. So when you see a Maverick posting a high true-shooting number, it means they’re generating points without wasting possessions — exactly what you want from a go-to scorer like Kyrie Irving, who has long been one of the league’s most efficient shot-makers.
Player Efficiency Rating (PER)
PER tries to boil a player’s entire per-minute production — scoring, rebounding, assists, steals, blocks, minus turnovers and missed shots — into one number. The league average is set at 15.0 every season, which makes it easy to read: above 15 is above average, above 20 is an All-Star-caliber season, and above 25 is superstar territory.
PER isn’t perfect (it tends to reward scoring and undervalue defense), so don’t treat it as gospel. But as a quick one-glance measure of “how productive was this player overall,” it’s handy — a fast way to see whether a young Maverick like Cooper Flagg is producing at a star level early in his career.
Usage Rate (USG%)
Usage rate estimates the percentage of a team’s possessions a player “uses” while on the floor — meaning they either shot, got fouled, or turned it over. It tells you how central a player is to the offense.
A star ball-handler will have a high usage rate because the offense runs through them; a role player who mostly spots up for threes will have a low one. Usage is most useful paired with efficiency: a player with high usage AND high true shooting is carrying a huge load efficiently, which is genuinely elite. High usage with poor efficiency is a red flag — someone taking a lot of bad shots.
Net Rating
Net rating is a team-level (or on/off) stat: it’s how many points per 100 possessions a team outscores opponents by. A positive net rating means you’re outscoring the other team when adjusted for pace; negative means you’re getting outscored.
Where it gets interesting is individual on/off splits — how the Mavericks perform with a given player on the court versus on the bench. If Dallas has a much better net rating when a certain player plays, that’s strong evidence he’s making a real difference, even if his box score doesn’t scream it. It’s one of the best ways to spot the value of defenders and glue guys the basic stats overlook.
A few more you’ll hear
Effective field goal percentage (eFG%) is a simpler cousin of true shooting — it adjusts for the fact that threes are worth more than twos, but leaves out free throws. Assist percentage estimates the share of teammate baskets a player set up while on the floor, a better playmaking measure than raw assist totals. And rebound percentage tells you the share of available rebounds a player grabbed, which is fairer than raw rebounds since it accounts for playing time and pace.
How to actually use these
You don’t need to memorize formulas — the numbers are all freely available on sites like Basketball Reference and NBA.com/stats. The skill is knowing what each one answers. When you’re evaluating a Maverick, ask: Is he scoring efficiently (true shooting)? How big is his role (usage)? Does the team play better with him out there (net rating)? Those three questions alone will tell you more than a week of box scores.
The bottom line
Advanced stats aren’t about replacing what your eyes tell you watching the game — they’re about confirming it, challenging it, and catching the things the box score hides. Start with true shooting and net rating, add the others as you go, and you’ll understand the Mavericks (and the whole NBA) on a deeper level. Next time someone at the bar says a player “scored a lot but didn’t really help,” you’ll know exactly which numbers prove them right or wrong.
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