What changed?
What changed?
Players whose game really moved: more minutes, a bigger role, a new shot diet. Each change comes with the likely reason and how much of it should hold.
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How this works
Windows
Every night we split each player's regular season (8+ games on each side) in one of three ways, in this order: the day he joined a new team; the game after which his minutes and usage shifted the most (a simple two-part split); or, if neither moved much, his last 10 games. Until the new season has enough games (about 20 each for most players) we use last season and its last 25 games, which catches the roles that changed at the trade deadline.
Is it big?
A change counts as big when it reaches:
- Points: 4 points a game
- Minutes: 5 minutes a game
- Usage: 4 points
- TS%: 4 points
- 3P%: 5 points
- 3-point rate: 8 points
- Rim share: 8 points
- Midrange share: 8 points
- Corner-3 share: 8 points
- Above-the-break 3 share: 8 points
- Assists: 2 assists a game
- Rebounds: 2.5 rebounds a game
Players need 15+ minutes a game on one side. Shooting needs 40+ threes or 60+ shots on each side.
Is it real?
Both windows are pulled toward the player's whole season by a fixed amount of weight M, the sample size where a stat is half skill and half luck: (window x n + season x M) / (n + M). A change is shown only if the pulled gap keeps at least half of the raw gap: Probably real keeps 60% or more, Partly real keeps 50 to 59%, anything less is Mostly noise and stays off the feed.
M values: 3P% 501 threes, TS% 218 shots and points 9.7 games, from Is it real?; minutes 9.4, usage 17, assists 18.9, rebounds 18.1, 3-point rate 13.9, rim share 18.2, midrange 16.8, corner 3 21.6 and above the break 15.4 games, measured on 1,766 pairs of back-to-back 10-game stretches in 2025-26. That is why 3P% changes almost never make it: threes are mostly luck until a player has taken hundreds.
Causes
Rules, each with a number. Points split exactly into minutes, shot volume and efficiency. Assists and rebounds split into minutes and per-minute rate. TS% and 3P% split into shot diet (league FG% from the spots he shot from) and shot-making (the rest). Context: a new team, a move into or out of the starting five (starting lineups from our stint data), key teammates (25+ minutes before) who missed most of the window, a new rotation player (20+ minutes), and opponents' defensive rating. We keep causes that explain 15%+ of the change and show the top three.
What we measured
The backtest numbers are not loaded yet.
What it cannot see
Injuries a player played through, coaching decisions, matchups and schemes, and anything off the box score. Missing teammates are read from who played, not the injury report. Causes are rough splits, not proof; when nothing in our data fits we say so.