Qualifying game
A supplied appearance that matches every selected filter. DNP and unknown participation are not played zeroes.
Trust the answer.
Inspect the limits.
How coverage, calculations, missing information, statistical terms, and reusable interface patterns work across the product.
03 · GLOSSARY
Basketball terms, plainly
Definitions describe how NightlyHoops uses each term, including important qualification rules.
Aggregate shooting percentage
Total matched makes divided by total matched attempts. It is not the average of per-game percentages.
Game sample
The exact group of records used for an answer. Every average identifies its sample size.
Plus/minus
The point differential while a player was on the floor, when supplied by the source.
Home and away
Venue status recorded for the represented player’s team. Unknown venue is never inferred.
Summary only
A season-level record without supporting game rows. NightlyHoops does not calculate answers from it.
Score not verified
A final whose score is not shown: its box score fails a check (a tie, team minutes short of a full game, or plus-minus that does not fit the margin), or the game is listed as one the source is known to hold wrongly. Records, series and counts leave it out and say how many. The three checks
Game Score
John Hollinger’s one-figure summary of a box-score line. Points, rebounds, assists, steals and blocks count for the player; shot attempts, missed free throws, turnovers and fouls count against, and made shots earn back part of what their attempts cost.
Usual line
A player’s average, stat by stat, over the same season’s earlier regular-season games; the usual Game Score is the Game Score of that line. Early in a season, last season’s average also counts, as extra games that fade out by game 21.
Surprise score
How rare a game’s gap from the player’s usual line is among comparable games, as a percentile rounded down: a 97 means no more than 3 in 100 of them finished that far on the same side of their usual. It measures rarity, not size, and covers regular-season and playoff games, scored apart. How it is calibrated
Comparable games
The calibration games whose player had the nearest usual Game Score: 5,000 in the NBA and 3,534 in the WNBA (2,692 early in a season). A starter is measured against games at a starter’s level, a bench player against bench players’ games. A playoff game is placed among playoff games: 2,627 in the NBA and 1,000 in the WNBA.
Unusual
A Surprise score of 95 to 97: no more than 5 in 100 comparable games finish this far above their usual, or this far below. For a player who plays every game, a game this far above the usual comes about 2 to 4 times a season in the NBA and about once or twice a season in the WNBA. It is the top tier of WNBA playoff games, whose scores stop at 97.
Rare
A Surprise score of 98: no more than 2 in 100 comparable games finish this far above their usual, or this far below. For a player who plays every game, a game this far above the usual comes about once or twice a season in the NBA and about once a season or less in the WNBA. It is the top tier of WNBA regular-season games and NBA playoff games, whose scores stop at 98.
Very rare
A Surprise score of 99: no more than 1 in 100 comparable games finish this far above their usual, or this far below. For a player who plays every game, a game this far above the usual comes less than once a season in the NBA. WNBA regular-season games top out at Rare, and no playoff score reaches it.
Playoff games (Surprise score)
A playoff game is scored apart from the regular season and never averaged with it: against the same season’s regular-season usual line, only for players with 20 or more regular-season games that season, and among comparable playoff games. Playoff scores stop at Rare (98) in the NBA and at Unusual (97) in the WNBA. The playoff tables