2025-26

Understanding Archetypes

NetStats uses a unified 11-archetype system to describe NBA players throughout the app. Here's how it works and where you'll see it.

The 11 Unified Archetypes

Start with a 3×3 grid: usage tier (how much a player has the ball) × scoring zone (rim, perimeter, or mixed). That produces 9 base archetypes. Then a separate check asks: is this player one of the league's top distributors by raw pass volume? If yes, their archetype is overridden to Primary Creator or Secondary Creator — because passing is their defining function, not how they happen to score.

← Lower Usage — Higher Usage →
Interior Focus Balanced / Mixed Perimeter Focus
Ball-Dominant Big
High-usage interior scorer. Commands the post or roll game. Dominant in the paint — the offensive hub in the frontcourt.
Versatile Star
High-usage, balanced scorer. Operates from everywhere — attacks the rim, shoots mid-range, and hits threes.
Iso Wing
High-usage perimeter creator. Iso-heavy, shot-creating wing who lives on pull-ups and step-backs off the dribble.
Athletic Wing
Mid-usage athletic scorer. Excels in transition, off cuts, and on drives — scores with athleticism and pace.
Combo Forward
Mid-usage forward with balanced or interior scoring. Solid two-way contributor who works within the offense without needing plays designed for them.
Volume Shooter
Mid-usage perimeter scorer. Takes a high volume of three-point attempts from multiple zones — pull-up or catch-and-shoot.
Off-Ball Finisher
Low-usage rim finisher. Catches lobs, cuts hard to the basket, and scores efficiently near the rim.
Connector
Low-usage all-rounder. No single dominant scoring zone — contributes in multiple ways to keep the offense moving.
Spot-Up Wing
Low-usage perimeter player. Corner and wing shooter who stretches the floor and punishes closeouts.
PLAYMAKER OVERRIDE

Any player who ranks in the top tier of the league's raw pass volume gets reassigned to one of these two archetypes — regardless of what the 3×3 grid would have given them. A corner perimeter shooter who passes at elite volume becomes Secondary Creator. Their shot chart is secondary; their ability to initiate and distribute ball movement is the defining trait.

Primary Creator
Top tier of league pass volume. The team's primary initiator — the offense runs through them. Their shot chart placement is irrelevant; ball distribution is their function.
Triggered by: pass volume in top league tier
Secondary Creator
Second tier of league pass volume. A high-volume distributor who may score efficiently without dominating the ball — but passes enough to be classified as a playmaker first.
Triggered by: pass volume in second league tier

Where Archetypes Appear

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League Landscape
Toggle between Scoring Style (shot chart clusters) and Archetype mode. In Archetype mode every dot is colored by unified archetype and the filter pills match the 11 types.
Open League →
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Team Explorer
The sidebar shows an Archetype Distribution bar for the active roster. Each player in the metrics table has an archetype badge. The dot color on each row matches their archetype.
Open Teams →
⊞
Synergy Matrix
The 11×11 matrix shows compatibility scores between every pair of archetypes. Click any cell to see the skill profile overlay, coverage by dimension, and real NBA teammates who share those two archetypes.
Open Synergy →
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Player Fit
The team's archetype makeup is shown as a distribution bar. Each player in the fit table has their archetype badge, so you can see instantly what the roster is missing and what a prospective player would add.
Open Player Fit →

Scoring Styles (shot chart clusters)

Separate from unified archetypes, Scoring Styles are 9 shot-chart-based groups. We analyze where every player takes their shots — rim, mid-range, three-point line — and group players with similar shooting patterns together. They power the Scoring Style color mode in the League Landscape and the trends on the League Dynamics page.

Ball-Dominant Creator
High dribble rate, self-creation. Pull-up heavy. Primary ball-handler who initiates offense.
Pull-Up Creator
Mid-range and 3-point pull-ups off the dribble. Scores off screens and isolation.
Perimeter Playmaker
Perimeter focus + high assist rate. Creates for self and others from the wing.
Rim Runner
Almost exclusively at-rim attempts. Roll man, cutter, or athletic finisher.
Interior Scorer
Paint-dominant. High rim attempt rate with some short mid-range.
Post Scorer
Mid-range + paint. Classic post footwork and back-to-the-basket game.
Corner Specialist
Corner 3 heavy. Pure floor spacer whose value is gravity, not creation.
Spot-Up Shooter
High 3PA rate from multiple zones. Catch-and-shoot from anywhere beyond the arc.
3-and-D Wing
Perimeter shooting combined with defensive versatility across multiple positions.
Bench Big
Reserve big who provides energy, rebounding, and interior presence without needing plays run for them.

Scoring Style clusters are re-fitted each season using a Gaussian Mixture Model on shot zone data. Up to 10 styles are produced; the exact mix varies by season. The unified archetype system collapses these into a stable 11-category vocabulary used across all pages.

Passing Roles (network topology)

The passing network graph produces two broad topology roles based on pass volume and distribution patterns. These appear in the League Dynamics trends and inform the passing dimension of unified archetypes.

Lead Distributor
High pass volume and out-degree. Initiates ball movement — strongly associated with Primary Creator and Secondary Creator archetypes.
Role Passer
Lower pass volume. Receives and finishes more than distributes. Encompasses most finishers, wings, and big men.

The finer-grained passing cluster breakdown (7 clusters) is used internally to compute Court Centrality and Playmaking dimensions in the synergy matrix — but simplified to these two roles for display.

Usage Patterns

Usage Patterns describe how much of a team's offense a player controls — not how they score, but how central they are to the offensive structure. Each player is grouped into one of 7 usage tiers based on minutes, touches, time of possession, and dribble rate. You'll see this on the Player page in the Archetypes panel and the Career Arc.

Ball-Dominant Creator
Primary ball-handler who dominates possession. Highest usage load — everything runs through them.
Iso Creator
High-usage isolation scorer. Commands one-on-one situations with a green light to operate.
Sixth Man Creator
Bench-unit leader who carries the offensive load when starters sit.
Scoring Big
High-usage big man who controls interior touches and demands the ball in the post or on the roll.
Spot-Up Finisher
Low-usage role player who scores within the flow — catch-and-shoot and cut-and-finish.
Role Player
Moderate-usage rotation contributor. Does a bit of everything without dominating the ball.
Bench Role Player
Reserve with limited touches. Fills specific gaps off the bench in spot minutes.

Usage Patterns are re-fitted each season from raw touches, time of possession, and dribble data. The probability bar on a player's page shows how cleanly they fit their assigned usage tier versus adjacent ones.

Full Glossary with metric formulas → Explore the Synergy Matrix →