Field-goal percentage was built for a league without a three-point line. True shooting — TS% — is the correction: one number that prices every way of scoring, which is why it now anchors every serious efficiency argument.
What the number actually does
TS% asks one question: how many points did you produce per scoring attempt, counting trips to the line? A high-volume three-point shooter and a paint-dwelling center can finally be compared on the same scale.
The benchmarks that matter
- League average — high .50s in recent seasons; the line moves a little each year.
- .600+ — elite efficiency, the territory of MVP-caliber scorers and rim-running bigs.
- Below .520 — a volume problem: those points are costing the offense possessions.
A tale of two 20-point games
Player A: 20 points on 18 shots, no free throws — TS% .556, fine but ordinary. Player B: 20 points on 11 shots with 6 free-throw attempts — TS% .735, a genuinely great night. Same headline, completely different value; that gap is invisible to a traditional box score, and it is exactly what the metric was built to expose. The formal definition sits in the NBA’s official glossary.
What TS% cannot see
Shot creation. A curl-screen specialist feasting on open looks and a star manufacturing shots against double-teams can post identical TS% with wildly different degrees of difficulty. Pair it with usage rate and shot-quality data before declaring anyone “more efficient.”
