Your leading scorer had 14 points last night. The parents in the stands will remember the 14.
What they will not remember is that it took 19 shots to get there, that five possessions ended in a turnover, and that four fouls kept sending the other team to the line. Meanwhile your quietest player scored 6, grabbed 9 rebounds, made 4 assists and never gave the ball away.
Points are the only number most people read in a box score, and points alone tell you very little about who actually helped the team win. That is the problem a one number rating is meant to solve. There are two common ones, EFF and PIR, and they are close enough to confuse and different enough to matter.
EFF: the NBA's efficiency rating
EFF is the NBA's efficiency rating, a simple formula that has been around for decades. It adds up the good things a player did and subtracts the possessions he wasted.
| Counts for the player | Counts against the player |
|---|---|
| Points | Missed field goals |
| Rebounds | Missed free throws |
| Assists | Turnovers |
| Steals | |
| Blocks |
So for one game:
EFF = points + rebounds + assists + steals + blocks, minus missed field goals, missed free throws and turnovers.
Missed field goals are field goal attempts minus field goals made, threes included. Missed free throws work the same way.
The logic is simple and mostly sound. A point is good. A rebound or a steal gives your team a possession. A missed shot or a turnover gives a possession away. EFF puts them all on one scale.
PIR: the Euroleague's Performance Index Rating
PIR is the rating the Euroleague and the EuroCup use in their box scores. It starts from the same idea and adds fouls on both sides of the ledger.
| Counts for the player | Counts against the player |
|---|---|
| Points | Missed field goals |
| Rebounds | Missed free throws |
| Assists | Turnovers |
| Steals | Fouls committed |
| Blocks | Shots blocked by the defense |
| Fouls drawn |
PIR = points + rebounds + assists + steals + blocks + fouls drawn, minus missed field goals, missed free throws, turnovers, fouls committed and shots that got blocked.
That is the whole difference. Three extra terms, and two of them are about fouls.
Why the fouls matter
At the professional level, fouls are a fairly small part of a player's line. At youth and high school level they are a big part of the game.
A player who reaches in all night is giving the other team free throws and bonus situations. A player who picks up two fouls in the first quarter and sits for the rest of the half has cost you more than any single missed shot. And a player who keeps attacking the rim and drawing contact is creating free throws and putting opponents in foul trouble, which never shows up in points if he misses the free throws.
EFF sees none of that. PIR sees all of it. That is the main reason we chose PIR as the rating in NextPlay's box scores: for the levels most of our coaches work at, fouls are part of who helped and who hurt.
Two worked examples
These are made up lines, chosen to show the arithmetic. Two walls of numbers are easier to read as a table.
The scorer and the glue player
| Points | FG | FT | Reb | Ast | Stl | Blk | TO | Fouls | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Player A | 14 | 6 of 19 | 2 of 4 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 5 | 4 |
| Player B | 6 | 3 of 5 | 0 of 0 | 9 | 4 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 1 |
Player A, EFF: the positives are 14 + 3 + 1 + 1 + 0 = 19. The negatives are 13 missed field goals, 2 missed free throws and 5 turnovers, so 20. EFF is 19 minus 20, which is minus 1.
Player A, PIR: the same, minus 4 fouls, so minus 5.
Player B, EFF: the positives are 6 + 9 + 4 + 2 + 1 = 22. The negatives are 2 missed field goals. EFF is 20.
Player B, PIR: the same, minus 1 foul, so 19.
The leading scorer finished below zero. The player nobody noticed was the most useful one on the floor. That is the conversation a rating starts, and it is a better conversation than "who scored the most."
Same EFF, different game
| Points | FG | FT | Reb | Ast | Stl | Blk | TO | Fouls | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Player C | 10 | 4 of 8 | 2 of 2 | 5 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 1 |
| Player D | 12 | 5 of 9 | 2 of 4 | 6 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 5 |
Both players have an EFF of 12. Work it through and Player C has 18 in positives and 6 in negatives, Player D has 21 and 9.
PIR splits them. Player C committed one foul and comes out at 11. Player D committed five and fouled out, so he comes out at 7.
By EFF, these were equal nights. By PIR, Player D's fouls cost the team a third of his contribution, and if you watched the game you probably felt that before you saw the number.
The version you can actually keep
Full PIR needs two numbers most volunteer stat keepers never write down: fouls drawn, and shots blocked against. Both are real, and both are hard to track from the bench, because a foul drawn means watching who got hit rather than who did the hitting.
So be honest about what you keep. If your sheet has points, field goals and free throws made and attempted, rebounds, assists, steals, blocks, turnovers and fouls, you can compute everything in PIR except those two terms. That is what NextPlay does: the PIR in its box score uses every column the stat sheet carries, which means fouls committed count against the player but fouls drawn do not count for him.
If you do track fouls drawn, add them. A player who lives at the free throw line deserves the credit, and with those two terms the number matches the full Euroleague formula.
A rating is a question, not a verdict
Every one number rating has blind spots, and you should know them before you trust one.
It does not see most defense. Steals and blocks count. Staying in front of your man, helping on a drive, boxing out so a teammate gets the rebound: none of that appears. Your best defender can post an ordinary number every night.
It rewards minutes. A starter who plays 28 minutes will almost always have a higher rating than a bench player who plays 10. Comparing their raw PIR is unfair to the bench.
It rewards size at young ages. Rebounds are one of the easiest positives to collect, and at 11 or 12 the tallest kid on the floor collects a lot of them.
So use the rating to ask questions. Why did a good shooter finish below zero? Was it the shots he took, or turnovers trying to make plays he cannot make yet? Why does a quiet player keep coming out near the top? The rating points at the game film. It does not replace it.
Compare per minute, not per game
The fix for the minutes problem is one division: rating per 10 minutes played.
Player B above had a PIR of 19 in 24 minutes. That is 19 divided by 24, times 10, so about 7.9 per 10 minutes.
A bench player with a PIR of 9 in 10 minutes is at 9.0 per 10 minutes. In the raw numbers he looks like half of Player B. Per minute, he was more productive while he was on the floor.
That is exactly the comparison that matters when you are deciding who deserves more time. It only works if somebody records minutes, which is one more reason to keep a rotation chart and track real minutes, as described in the youth basketball rotation chart.
Season numbers: total first, then divide
Both ratings are plain sums and differences, so a season rating is easy. Add up each column over the season, apply the formula once to the totals, and divide by the number of games for a per game average. You get the same answer as averaging the single game ratings, and you avoid the rounding mess of averaging averages.
The same property means a team's PIR for a game is the sum of its players' PIR. That makes it a decent team level number to compare across games, as long as you remember that a blowout and a close game produce very different minutes.
Should you show ratings to players and parents?
With older, competitive teams, a rating can be useful in an individual conversation: "your shooting was fine, it was the five turnovers." Shown that way, a player can see exactly what to fix.
With young players, be careful. A ranked list of PIR on the wall turns a teaching tool into a scoreboard for kids, and the kids at the bottom are often the ones who need the most encouragement. A reasonable rule is to share team totals with everyone and individual ratings one on one.
Parents usually want the box score anyway. If you share one, share the whole line, not just points and PIR, so the number has its context next to it.
Keeping it without a spreadsheet
You need nine columns per player: points, field goals made and attempted, free throws made and attempted, rebounds, assists, steals, blocks, turnovers and fouls, plus minutes if you want the per minute view. A parent volunteer can keep two or three columns comfortably. Split the sheet between two people and you have a full box score.
In NextPlay, the Stats form on each game in the calendar takes the makes and attempts, and works out points and total rebounds from them, so there is less to type at the scorer's table. PIR is computed from the line and closes every row of the box score and the season report. The report can be shared as a live link, one game or the whole season, so parents see the full line and not just the points.
If you would rather not type at all, read the line to the NextPlay coaching staff after the game, player by player, and it records the box score on the right game for you.
Frequently asked questions
What is PIR in basketball?
PIR is the Performance Index Rating, the one number rating the Euroleague uses for every player in a box score. It adds points, rebounds, assists, steals, blocks and fouls drawn, then subtracts missed field goals, missed free throws, turnovers, fouls committed and shots that were blocked. A higher number means the player gave the team more than he cost it.
How do you calculate PIR?
Add points, rebounds, assists, steals, blocks and fouls drawn. Then subtract missed field goals, which are field goal attempts minus makes, missed free throws, turnovers, fouls committed and shots blocked by the defense. If your stat sheet does not record fouls drawn or blocked shots, compute the rest and treat the result as PIR without those two terms.
What is the difference between PIR and EFF?
EFF, the NBA's efficiency rating, counts points, rebounds, assists, steals and blocks against missed shots and turnovers. PIR adds three things on top: fouls drawn count for the player, and fouls committed and shots blocked against count against him. Two players with the same EFF can have very different PIR if one of them was in foul trouble.
What is a good PIR?
It depends on the level, the minutes and the role, so compare players inside your own team rather than against a fixed number. Zero means the positives and negatives cancelled out. For a fair comparison between a starter and a bench player, divide by minutes played and look at PIR per 10 minutes.
Does PIR count defense?
Only part of it. Steals, blocks and defensive rebounds count. Staying in front of your man, help defense and boxing out do not appear at all, so a strong defender can have an ordinary rating. Use the number alongside what you saw, not instead of it.
Should youth coaches share player ratings?
Share team totals freely and individual ratings one on one. A rating is a good way to show a player exactly what to work on, but a ranked list for young players turns a teaching tool into a public scoreboard. With older competitive teams, a rating can be part of an individual review.
The Stats tab in NextPlay keeps the box score on each game, computes PIR for every line and builds the season report you can share with your team. The NextPlay coaching staff is free for fourteen days with no card.