Separating one player’s impact
from the other nine on the floor.

Adjusted Underlying Rating of Ability estimates how much better or worse a team performs with one particular player on the floor, in points per 100 possessions against league average.

It reaches that figure in two independent ways. The first looks at what the scoreboard did during the exact stretches he played and removes the contribution of the other nine, using the thousands of different lineups he has appeared in. The second ignores the scoreboard and uses only his own record — his shooting, finishing, passing, ball security, rebounding and the men he guarded. The two are then combined.

Offence and defence are estimated separately, so a +3 built on scoring reads differently from a +3 built on defence. Every rating is shown with the number of possessions behind it.

For scale: of the 562 players with enough evidence to carry a rating, half sit between −1.9 and +0.7. Twenty-seven clear +3, and only six clear +5.