12 players making an efficiency leap in the NBA this season

The first quarter of every NBA season is a blast because there’s so much to learn. We’re creeping up on the 20-game mark for most teams, which means we’re starting to feel a little more grounded in our new evaluations of players, teams, and coaches – although plenty can still change.

Sample sizes at the player level are still small, but they’re not infinitesimal anymore. We can feel better about directional reads on where they’ve improved (or where they haven’t).

In today’s numbers-driven NBA, efficiency is king. We wanted to look at who has optimized their shot diet and leveled up their shotmaking compared to previous years to become a more effective scoring option. I looked at everyone in Basketball-Reference’s qualifying list of players from this year and last year and narrowed it down to players who have attempted at least 7.5 shots per game this season, leaving me with a pool of 119 players. Below are the 12 (the top decile) with the biggest jump in true shooting percentage (TS%).

We’re not at the point where these things are capital-T truths yet; a whole lot of the season still has to go on, and not everyone on this list will remain here if we re-run the exercise at the end of the year. But these players have made such significant jumps that it has to mean something, even if they come back to Earth eventually.