EfficientShai: SGA's Insane StatShots

Over at my website, StatShot, I mapped every one of Shai Gilgeous-Alexander’s 1,083 field goal attempts this season against league average by zone. I’ve done this for about 50 players in 2025-26. His chart is the only one where I had to double-check the output.

There’s no gray. Almost every zone on the heatmap is above league average. Not “elite in one area and average everywhere else.” Above league from everywhere he shoots, on real volume.

SGA's zone numbers on 1,083 FGA through 55 games:

He doesn’t shoot corner threes. Throw those out. In every zone that’s actually part of his game, he’s above league. The paint and midrange are where you stare: +11.5% on 254 paint attempts and +12.7% on 289 from midrange. I ran Devin Booker’s midrange a few weeks ago for my Jordan/Kobe Substack piece. Book was +5.8%. SGA at +12.7% is a different tier entirely.

And the shot diet is almost as interesting as the efficiency: SGA’s distribution is 50.4% paint, 26.7% midrange, and 22.9% from three. He takes more midrange shots than threes. In 2026. A 27-year-old guard is choosing 15-footers over the arc, and he’s converting at 54.3%. That’s not a misallocation. That’s a weapon.

The thing I can’t explain is his left corner three: 27.3% on 11 attempts. It’s just 11 shots so I’d never headline it, but it’s strange for a guy hitting 38.5% from above the break on 234 FGA. OKC’s spacing scheme might keep him out of the corners entirely (the right corner is 3 FGA). Or maybe he just doesn’t like the spot. The data says there’s a dead zone. It doesn’t say why.

I searched 30 seasons. The comps are weird.

I built a shot-profile index covering about 14,000 player-seasons going back to 1996-97. It uses cosine similarity across 10 features: shot diet (paint/mid/three share) and zone-by-zone efficiency vs. league. I ran SGA’s 2025-26 profile against all of them.

The top match is Zach Randolph’s 2017-18 season. Then Jokic’s 2017-18. Then Embiid’s 2020-21.

The top 5:

Read that list again. Three of the top five are bigs. A 6’6” guard’s shot chart looks most like versatile centers, because his paint share (50.4%) and his “above league from everywhere” pattern are traits you almost never see from a perimeter player. Most modern guards live at 40% paint, 15% mid, 45% three. SGA’s diet is the inverse. The algorithm can’t tell the difference between a guard who lives in the paint by choice and a center who lives there by position. Both have the same shape: high paint share, positive deltas across the board.

The Nash Connection

Growing up watching Steve Nash shaped how I think about efficiency. Nash in 2003-04 (pre-MVP, Dallas) was above league from the paint out: +9.5% in the paint on 148 FGA, +7.8% midrange on 279 FGA, +6.1% from three on 255 FGA. Positive almost everywhere.

Almost. Nash was -4.6% at the rim on 215 FGA. He could shoot from everywhere, but finishing at the basket was the one zone where the league had him. SGA took that template and filled the hole. +3.7% at the rim on 292 FGA. That’s the gap between “efficient from everywhere outside the restricted area” and “efficient from everywhere, period.”

Nash’s diet was 39.8% paint, 30.6% mid, 29.7% three. More balanced across the three zones, less paint-heavy. But the feel is the same: take what the defense gives you, beat the league from wherever you end up. SGA just does it from deeper inside the paint, at the rim, AND from the in-between.

Same box score, different player

I also ran a separate search on per-game stat profiles (PPG, RPG, APG, SPG, BPG, TOV) across every season since 1996-97. Different method, different lens. The closest match: Kyrie Irving’s 2020-21 (26.3/4.9/5.6/1.3/0.7/2.2) to SGA’s 2025-26 (31.8/4.5/6.6/1.4/0.8/2.1). The steals, blocks, and assists are almost identical. The gap is scoring: SGA at 31.8 vs Kyrie at 26.3.

When the game is close

In the last 5 minutes of the 4th quarter with the margin within 5 points, SGA is shooting 53.3% on 105 FGA. That’s #3 in the league behind Mark Williams (77.8% on 36 FGA, tiny sample, I wrote about him last week) and Jokic (53.8% on 117). For the full 4th quarter, SGA is at 52.8% on 142 FGA, +6.6% vs league.

Feeding the Takes

SGA is above league in every zone he shoots from with volume. 54.3% from midrange on 289 attempts in a league that abandoned 15 feet. +11.5% in the paint on 254. A clutch conversion rate that only Jokic matches on comparable volume. And a shot profile so balanced across the court that the closest historical comps are versatile centers and pre-MVP Nash.

The MVP conversation has been over for weeks. The shot data just confirms what OKC already knew. There’s nobody else who looks like this.

Is the “no weakness” shot chart more valuable than Jokic’s triple-double machine (28.9/12.5/10.3)? Zone efficiency vs. all-around production. Both are real cases. I know where I lean, but the data supports both.

Methodology: The shot profile comparison uses cosine similarity across 10 features (diet + zone deltas vs league) on ~14,000 player-seasons from 1996-97 to present. All zone data and the interactive tool are free at statshot.io (30 seasons). Nash’s full career profile is queued next.

Editor's Note: Alex and I traded some thoughts on SGA's crazy statshot outputs. My take on his corner three volume: he just doesn't space out that direction, and hasn't taken 15 shots from either corner since his sophomore season. Alex is also interested in feedback from our readers: comment or email back which players and features you'd like most to see on his site.

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