Box scores love to hand you a clean number. A guard finishes the night at 50% from the field, and the assumption writes itself: he shot the ball well. But field goal percentage is one of the most misleading stats in basketball, because it treats every made shot as if it were worth the same thing. A made layup and a made three count identically toward FG%, even though one put up three points and the other put up two. And free throws? FG% ignores them entirely. A player can score 30 points on a quiet, efficient night and still post a pedestrian-looking field goal percentage, simply because a chunk of his scoring came from the line or beyond the arc.
That gap is exactly what True Shooting Percentage was built to close. If you want to know how efficiently a player actually turned scoring chances into points — every shot, every free throw, every value — TS% is the number that tells the truth.
What True Shooting Percentage actually measures
True Shooting Percentage answers a single, honest question: how many points did a player generate per scoring opportunity? It folds field goals, three-pointers, and free throws into one rate, weighting each by its real point value. The formula looks like this:
TS% = PTS / (2 × (FGA + 0.44 × FTA))
The numerator is just total points scored. The denominator is an estimate of how many "true shot attempts" it took to score them. The 2 in front converts the rate into a percentage you can read on the same scale as FG% — a TS% of 56% means the player is scoring as if every possession were a 56%-efficient two-point look, but now with threes and free throws baked in. Higher is better, full stop.
Why 0.44, and not 0.5 or 1?
The strangest-looking piece is that 0.44 × FTA term, and it trips people up. Why not just count every free throw attempt as a full shot? Because most trips to the line do not consume a possession the way a field goal attempt does.
Think about how free throws actually happen. A standard shooting foul gives you two shots, but that's one possession, not two. An and-one is a single bonus free throw tacked onto a made basket. A three-shot foul behind the arc gives three attempts for one possession. Technical and flagrant free throws don't end a possession at all. When you average out every way a player gets to the line across a full season of NBA data, each free throw attempt costs roughly 0.44 of a possession. The 0.44 is an empirically derived constant — not a guess — that turns raw FTA into the fractional number of possessions those free throws really used. It's what lets TS% compare a slasher who lives at the line against a spot-up shooter on equal footing.
A worked example
Numbers make this concrete. Imagine a wing finishes a game with this line:
- 28 points scored on the night.
- 18 field goal attempts (mix of twos and threes — it doesn't matter for the formula, because points already capture the value).
- 6 free throw attempts, of which he made 5.
Drop those into the formula:
TS% = 28 / (2 × (18 + 0.44 × 6))
= 28 / (2 × (18 + 2.64))
= 28 / (2 × 20.64)
= 28 / 41.28
= 0.678, or 67.8%
That's an elite, efficient night. Now compare it to the lazy read. If this player went, say, 8-for-18 from the field, his field goal percentage is a forgettable 44.4% — the kind of number that makes a casual observer think he struggled. But the threes he hit and the five free throws he drained tell a completely different story. TS% catches all of it; FG% throws most of it away.
How it differs from effective field goal percentage
TS% has a close cousin worth knowing: effective field goal percentage (eFG%). They solve overlapping problems but aren't the same.
- eFG% fixes the three-pointer blind spot only. Its formula is (FGM + 0.5 × 3PM) / FGA — it gives a made three 1.5× the credit of a made two, because it's worth 50% more points. That's a real upgrade over raw FG%.
- eFG% still ignores free throws entirely. A player who scores heavily from the line gets no credit for it in eFG%. TS% does, which is why it's the more complete efficiency measure.
- Use eFG% when you specifically want shooting-from-the-floor efficiency — for example, evaluating a catch-and-shoot specialist or a team's halfcourt shot quality. Use TS% when you want total scoring efficiency, free throws included.
A handy way to hold the two in your head: eFG% grades the jump shot and the layup, TS% grades the whole scoring profile.
What counts as a "good" TS%
Context is everything, but the benchmarks are stable enough to memorize:
- League average sits in the mid-50s percent — call it roughly 56–58% in the modern, three-heavy era. That's your baseline for "league average."
- Above 60% is genuinely elite scoring efficiency, and the bar gets steeper the more shots a player takes. Posting 60%+ TS% on low volume is one thing; doing it as a primary option who absorbs 25-plus shots a night is the mark of a superstar.
- Below the low-50s for a high-usage scorer is a warning sign — it usually means a player is taking a lot of tough, contested looks without the efficiency to justify the volume.
The names that show up at the top of all-time TS% leaderboards are exactly who you'd expect: the great efficient bigs who shot a high field goal percentage and lived at the rim, and the modern stars known for elite efficiency who pair a deadly three-point stroke with a heavy diet of free throws in their MVP-caliber seasons. Efficiency at high volume is the rarest combination in the sport, and TS% is the cleanest single number for spotting it.
What TS% can't tell you
Here's the discipline part: TS% is powerful precisely because it's narrow, and narrow stats lie when you push them past their job. A high TS% on its own does not crown anyone. Keep these blind spots in front of you:
- It says nothing about volume. A bench player who takes four shots a game can post a gaudy TS% by only attempting wide-open looks. A 62% TS% on 4 attempts is not the same achievement as 62% on 24 attempts. Always read TS% alongside usage rate.
- It ignores shot difficulty. The stat doesn't know whether a make was a wide-open corner three or a contested fadeaway with a hand in the face. Two players can share a TS% while shouldering wildly different shot diets.
- It's silent on playmaking. Scoring efficiently is half the offensive job; creating shots for teammates is the other half. A pass-first floor general's value barely registers in TS%.
- It measures offense only. Defense, rebounding, and the dozen winning plays that never hit the box score live completely outside this number. For a fuller one-line snapshot of total impact, analysts reach for composite stats — see our breakdown of Player Efficiency Rating (PER).
None of this is a knock on TS%. It's a reminder that it's one instrument in the kit, not the whole toolbox. Pair it with usage, assist numbers, and your own eyes, and you've got a real picture. Lean on it alone and you'll occasionally crown a low-volume role player as more "efficient" than a franchise centerpiece — which is technically true and completely useless.
The bottom line
Field goal percentage tells you how often a player makes a shot. True Shooting Percentage tells you how efficiently he turns chances into points — threes, free throws, and all. That's the question that actually matters when you're judging a scorer. Learn to read it, anchor it around the mid-50s league average and that magic 60% elite line, and always check it against volume before you draw a conclusion. Do that, and you'll never again be fooled by a clean-looking field goal percentage that's quietly hiding the truth. Want to see how the numbers stack up across the league's best? Dig into the player directory and start comparing.