Possession Advantage · NBA Regular Season
Possession Maxing
Offensive rebound % × turnover %
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Swipe horizontally to see every column. Select any column heading to sort. Combined margin adds the OREB% margin and TO% margin.
Each dot is one team-season, with all 180 observations from 2020-21 through 2025-26 pooled into one chart and one regression. The same-team estimate controls for stable team differences and league-wide season shifts. The relationship survives that test, but roster talent, shooting, injuries, coaching, and game state can still influence both possession margin and wins, so these data establish association—not causation.
What the percentages mean
OREB% margin is team OREB% minus opponent OREB%. Team OREB% is offensive rebounds divided by offensive rebounds plus opponent defensive rebounds. TOV% margin is opponent TOV% minus team TOV%, where TOV% is turnovers divided by field-goal attempts plus 0.44 × free-throw attempts plus turnovers. Values are percentage points, and positive is better on both axes.
Because each rate is normalized by its own opportunities, teams can be compared across different paces without a separate pace adjustment. The zero lines divide the chart into four quadrants: teams in the upper right win both percentage battles, teams in the lower left lose both, and the other two quadrants show an advantage in only one category.
Net rating is Basketball-Reference’s points-per-100-possessions measure. LDI is Reed’s 48-minute-normalized Lead Dominance Index, measuring signed scoreboard control across game time.
Team and opponent totals plus net rating: Basketball-Reference season summaries. LDI: Reed’s local nbastatsv3 season calculations.
How to read the predicted wins chart
Each dot represents one NBA team-season from 2020-21 through 2025-26, so all 180 observations appear together. Hover, focus, or tap a dot to see the team, season, combined TO%+OREB% margin, actual record, 82-game win pace, predicted wins, and difference from the prediction.
The horizontal axis is combined TO%+OREB% margin in percentage points. Positive values mean the team created an advantage through offensive rebounding and turnovers. The vertical axis is wins normalized to an 82-game season, which keeps the shortened 2020-21 season comparable.
The orange line is the pooled best-fit relationship. Its equation predicts about 41 wins at a zero margin and approximately 1.6 additional wins for every +1 percentage point of combined margin. Pooled R² measures how much of the variation in wins the margin explains by itself; 0.21 means approximately 21%.
The same-team estimate removes each team’s average and each season’s league-wide average before fitting the relationship. Its +2.1-win result shows that the association remains when teams are compared with their own typical level, although the chart does not isolate a causal effect.