TPR Scout Introduces Player DNA Ratings, Transfer Rankings

PITTSBURGH, Pa. — The Portal Report is pleased to announce the addition of Player DNA ratings and transfer rankings to TPR Scout. 

The TPR recruiting staff and analytics team have rated each player in the transfer portal in eight Key Player DNA Categories. These eight Key Player DNA Categories are strictly statistically calculated based on the previous year’s actual statistics of each player and are rated against every qualified player’s statistics over the past ten years. The Key Player DNA Categories include:

1. Impact – The Impact category is meant to capture the player’s impact on the game. We look at a variety of advanced statistics including Usage Rate, Player Net Efficiency, and Player Presence Rating (which tracks overall player activity during a game by calculating the number of a team’s play-by-play entries that a player initiated as a percentage).
2. Scoring – Estimates the player’s ability to score by analyzing the player’s points per game, points per 40 minutes, points per shot, and effective field goal percentage. This not only considers the rate at which the player scores but also the efficiency in which the player is able to score.
3. Distributing – Similar to the Scoring category, estimates the player’s ability to create shots for others by analyzing assists per game, assists per 40 minutes, percent of team’s assists while the player is on the floor, and assist to turnover ratio. This not only estimates the player’s ability to create for others, but also estimates the player’s efficiency by considering assist to turnover ratio and assist percentage.
4. Outside Shooting – Applies a greater weight on three-point shooting and free-throw shooting to estimate the player’s ability to shoot from the outside. Also considers the rate at which the player attempts three-point shots and free throws as well as the player’s true shooting percentage.
5. Inside Shooting – Focuses on true shooting percentage and effective field goal percentage as well as strictly 2 point shooting percentage. This is intended to remove the outside shooting factors of three-point shots and, to some degree, free-throw shooting. All of this to truly estimate the player’s ability to make field goals from short range.
6. Rebounding – Estimates the player’s ability to rebound by considering defensive and offensive rebounds per game, rebounds per 40 minutes, and percent of team’s rebounds while the player is on the floor. Intended to not only consider the total rebounds by the player but also the player’s rebound rate while on the floor.
7. Defending – One of the more difficult areas to estimate. However, we rely on the player’s impact to the box score in categories like steals, blocks, defensive rebounds, defensive rebounding rate (percent of team’s rebounds when the player is on the floor), and rebounds per 40 minutes. This does tend to be more favorable for big men.
8. Team Success – We consider the player’s team success to provide some context to the player’s success on the floor. The Team Success calculation looks at the team’s winning percentage, the winning percentage of the team’s opponents, and the winning percentage of the opponents of the team’s opponents to provide some context to the level of competition. This also relies on the increasingly popular ELO rating. ELO rating estimates relative strength of teams based on the expected results vs actual results. A team’s ELO rating is impacted more when the actual result varies from the expected result. For instance, a team’s ELO rating would increase more if they win in a big upset than if they beat a team they were expected to win against. Same goes for when a team loses to a big underdog.

Our analysts and scouts weighted these eight Key Player DNA Categories to calculate an overall player rating system out of a total possible score of 100. We used the concept of indexing to rate and rank all players. In order to have a statistically relevant sample size, we performed this same ranking system to every season of every player over the past ten years. So the top ranked player for each category over the past ten years would be rated a 100. We present each player’s DNA in a radar chart (see below) to show what the strengths and weaknesses of each player are.

We also provide an additional view with each Key Player DNA Category on a scale of 0 to 100.

We then assign a Star Rating to each player based on their Overall TPR Rating based on the following scale:

5 Star | Overall Player Rating over 95

4 Star | Overall Player Rating between 87.5 and 95

3 Star | Overall Player Rating between 80 and 87.5

2 Star | Overall Player Rating between 65 and 80

1 Star | Overall Player Rating between 40 and 65

0 Star | Overall Player Rating under 40 (also includes players who do not have any statistics recorded from the previous season)

To access the Player Rankings, please select the “Player Rankings” option from the menu of TPR Scout. To access the Player DNA information, please view the Player Profile from any page of TPR Scout and select.