Analytics vocabulary is a barrier that keeps good coaches from evaluating tools honestly. Most of it is simpler than it sounds. Roughly two thirds of these terms are just efficiency measured per possession instead of per game, and the other third is coverage language that most coaches already teach under a different name. Nothing here requires math beyond division.
Possessions and efficiency
Everything in modern basketball analysis is built on one idea: judge things per possession, not per game. A team that scores 85 points in 60 possessions is far better than one that scores 90 in 80.
| Term | Plain definition | Why a coach should care |
|---|---|---|
| Possession | One team's opportunity with the ball, ending in a shot, a turnover, or free throws, with offensive rebounds continuing the same possession. | It is the denominator under every efficiency number, so if you disagree with how a tool counts possessions, you disagree with all of its stats. |
| Pace | The number of possessions a team uses per 40 or 48 minutes of game time. | Pace tells you how many total decisions your team must make, which determines whether your rotation depth or your execution is the binding constraint. |
| PPP, points per possession | Points scored divided by possessions used, typically between 0.80 and 1.20 at most levels. | It is the single most useful number in scouting, because it lets you rank an opponent's actions and take away their best one. |
| Offensive and defensive rating | Points scored, or allowed, per 100 possessions, which is just PPP multiplied by 100. | Same information as PPP on a friendlier scale, and it separates a genuinely good defense from a slow team that simply gives up fewer total points. |
| Net rating | Offensive rating minus defensive rating. | The fastest single read on whether a lineup is winning its minutes, which is why lineup reports lead with it. |
| Four Factors | Dean Oliver's framework of shooting, turnovers, rebounding, and free throws, weighted roughly 40, 25, 20, and 15 percent. | It tells you where to spend practice time, because it ranks the four things that actually decide games in order of importance. |
Shooting and shot quality
| Term | Plain definition | Why a coach should care |
|---|---|---|
| eFG%, effective field goal percentage | Field goal percentage adjusted so a made three counts one and a half times a made two. | It is the honest way to compare a three-point shooting team against a paint-scoring team, and it is the largest of the Four Factors. |
| TS%, true shooting percentage | Total scoring efficiency including free throws, computed as points divided by two times the sum of attempts and 0.44 times free throw attempts. | It rewards players who draw fouls, so it identifies scorers whose value your box score is hiding. |
| 3PAr, three-point attempt rate | The share of a team's field goal attempts that are threes. | It is the fastest read on offensive identity, and it tells you whether to close out long or sag. |
| FTr, free throw rate | Free throw attempts divided by field goal attempts. | High free throw rate means a downhill, contact-seeking team, so your defensive plan is verticality and charge-taking rather than shot contests. |
| Shot quality | A model's estimate of how likely an average shooter would be to make a given shot, based on location, defender distance, and shot type. | It separates a bad shooting night from a bad shot-selection process, which are two completely different practice problems. |
| Rim rate, rim pressure | The share of a team's shots taken at the rim, or the frequency with which a player gets to the basket. | It is the best single proxy for whether your defense is actually walling the paint or just looking organized. |
Roles, usage, and impact
| Term | Plain definition | Why a coach should care |
|---|---|---|
| Usage rate | The estimated percentage of a team's possessions a player ends while on the floor, through a shot, turnover, or trip to the line. | It tells you who the offense actually runs through, which is often not who scores the most points. |
| Assist rate | The percentage of teammate field goals a player assists while on the floor. | It separates a real creator from a high-scoring finisher, and it tells you whose hands you need the ball out of. |
| Turnover rate | Turnovers per 100 possessions used, rather than turnovers per game. | It is the honest way to evaluate a high-usage guard, since more touches naturally produce more turnovers. |
| Rebound rate | The percentage of available rebounds a team or player collects, reported separately for the offensive and defensive glass. | The offensive number decides whether you send anyone to the glass or commit fully to transition defense, and the defensive number tells you whether your good shot contests are being wasted. |
| On/off | The difference in team performance with a player on the floor versus off it. | It surfaces role players whose value does not appear anywhere in a box score, which is exactly who opponents underestimate. |
| Gravity | The degree to which a player's shooting threat pulls defenders away from their assignment. | It explains why a 6-point-per-game shooter can be the reason your best scorer gets a clean lane. |
| Archetype | A player classification based on how they generate offense, such as pull-up creator, rim-running big, or movement shooter. | Archetypes travel across levels, so they let you prepare for a player you have never seen by preparing for a type you have. |
Coverage and scheme vocabulary
These are the terms most coaches already teach, often under local names. Knowing the standard label matters because scouting software reports efficiency against these labels.
| Term | Plain definition | Why a coach should care |
|---|---|---|
| Drop | The screener's defender retreats toward the rim rather than stepping to the ball, conceding the pull-up to protect the paint. | It is the safest base coverage and the wrong one against an elite mid-range shooter, so a report on pull-up efficiency decides it. |
| ICE, blue, or down | Forcing a side ball screen toward the baseline by having the on-ball defender jump the screen and deny the middle. | It keeps the ball out of the middle of the floor, which is where every advantage in the half court gets multiplied. |
| Hedge or show | The screener's defender steps out hard to briefly contain the ball handler before recovering to their own man. | It buys the on-ball defender time to fight over, at the cost of a short-roll advantage if the recovery is late. |
| Blitz or trap | Two defenders commit to the ball handler off the screen to force the ball out of their hands entirely. | It is the correct answer to a dominant single creator, and it requires a rehearsed rotation behind it or it is worse than nothing. |
| Switch | The two defenders in an action exchange assignments. | It kills the advantage instantly and creates a mismatch, so it is a personnel decision more than a scheme decision. |
| Low man | The weak-side defender responsible for tagging the roller or protecting the rim on a drive. | Most defensive breakdowns that look like effort problems are actually low-man responsibility problems. |
| Tag the roll | A weak-side defender briefly bumping the rolling screener to delay the pass, then recovering. | It is the specific action that lets you play drop coverage without surrendering lobs. |
| Closeout | A defender's controlled sprint and break-down at a shooter after a rotation. | It is the most-repeated defensive action in the game, and closeout quality is what turns good rotations into stops. |
| Nail | The spot at the middle of the free throw line, used as a help position. | Nail help is how you shrink the floor without leaving the corners, which is the balance every shell drill is teaching. |
Data and software terms
This is the section that matters when you are actually comparing products, because the vocabulary here describes what the vendor is doing with your money.
| Term | Plain definition | Why a coach should care |
|---|---|---|
| Play type | A standardized category for how a possession ended, such as isolation, pick and roll ball handler, post-up, spot-up, or transition. | It is the organizing unit of every modern scouting report, and it is what lets you say "take away their handoffs" with evidence. |
| Synergy play types | The specific play-type taxonomy popularized by Synergy Sports and published on NBA.com, which became the industry default. | Because it is the default, most tools report against it, so learning these ten categories makes every product legible to you. |
| Tagging | The act of labeling each possession in video with its play type, personnel, result, and other attributes. | Tagging is the actual labor you are buying when you pay for a breakdown service, and it is the thing a free stack costs you in hours. |
| PBP, play-by-play data | The chronological event log of a game, listing every shot, foul, rebound, and substitution with a timestamp. | It is free or cheap at most levels and supports lineup and run analysis without any video at all. |
| Tracking data | Positional data capturing where every player and the ball are, many times per second, from cameras or optical systems. | It powers shot quality, gravity, and defensive-matchup metrics, and it is the expensive layer that most high school programs do not need. |
| Possession-indexed video | Film that is linked to the possession log so you can jump straight to every instance of a play type. | This is the real product of premium video platforms, and it is the difference between owning film and being able to use it. |
| Box score data | The traditional per-game statistical summary of points, rebounds, assists, and shooting. | It is free everywhere, it is more informative than coaches assume, and it is often the only data available for an unfamiliar opponent. |
How to use this vocabulary in a demo
The vocabulary is not the point. The point is asking better questions when a salesperson is walking you through a platform.
Three questions that use these terms and cut through most pitches:
1. "Is your play-type data tagged by humans, by a model, or by me?" This determines both the price and the accuracy. Human tagging is expensive and precise. Model tagging is cheap and directionally right. Self-tagging is free and consumes your February. 2. "Can I get PPP by play type against specific coverages, or only aggregate PPP?" Aggregate efficiency is interesting. Efficiency split by what the defense did is actionable, and only some products actually deliver it. 3. "What do I get on a team I have no video for?" This is the question almost nobody asks, and it separates a video platform from a scouting-intelligence tool. If the answer is "nothing," you have learned something important about your tournament weekends. The methodology for that situation is in how to scout a team with no film.
If you are pricing this out for a program with a real budget ceiling, the three budget scouting stacks map these capabilities to $0, under $500, and under $2,000 a year, and the full breakdown of what Synergy actually costs explains why the enterprise tier is priced where it is. To see what a report built on this vocabulary looks like on a real matchup, compare the plans and start with the tier that fits your season.