How the ratings work
A Freeman Rating answers one question in points: how much better than average is this team, or this player? The numbers do most of the work. The film gets a small say, and we always show how much.
| Part | What it captures | Teams | Players |
|---|---|---|---|
| The box score | What happened, in numbers | Scoring margin | Production (Game Score per 40) |
| Context | Who it came against, and where | Schedule and home court | How good her team is with her on the floor |
| The eye test | What the film shows that the box score misses | At most 2 points either way, with the reason published | |
Team rating
Freeman Rating = adjusted margin + eye test
1. Scoring margin
Points scored minus points allowed, averaged over every finished game. It's the simplest strong signal in basketball: teams that outscore people by a lot tend to keep winning.
2. Adjusted for opponents and home court
Beating a top-10 team by 5 says more than beating a bad team by 25, so the margin is adjusted for every opponent. Each game gives one equation:
home score − away score = home team's rating − away team's rating + home-court edge
Put every game of the season together and there's one set of ratings that fits all the results best (the least-squares fit, the same idea behind Sports-Reference's Simple Rating System). The home-court edge comes out of the same fit, from the season's own games. Ratings average zero, so +10 means 10 points better than an average team on a neutral floor.
The intuition: a team's rating is roughly its average margin plus the average rating of the teams it played. A +12 margin against a schedule rated −3 works out to about +9.
Two guards keep it fair:
- Blowouts are capped at 25 points. Winning by 50 counts the same as winning by 25, so running up the score doesn't pay.
- Every team starts with two imaginary games against an average team. Early in the season that pulls ratings toward zero; after a dozen real games it barely matters.
3. The eye test
Film catches things a margin can't: a star back from injury, a new lineup that changed everything, a defense that has held up against much better offenses than the schedule shows. When I see something like that, I can move a rating by at most 2 points either way, and the reason is published next to it on the Rankings page. The cap keeps the numbers in charge; the published reason keeps me honest.
Player rating
Player ratings arrive with this season's box scores. The formula is set now so it can be checked before the first number is published.
Freeman Rating = production + team impact + eye test
Production: Game Score per 40 minutes
Game Score is John Hollinger's one-number box-score summary (Basketball-Reference glossary). Misses and turnovers count against, so volume without efficiency doesn't win:
PTS + 0.4 FGM − 0.7 FGA − 0.4 (FTA − FTM) + 0.7 OREB + 0.3 DREB + STL + 0.7 AST + 0.7 BLK − 0.4 PF − TOV
Scaled to 40 minutes, a full game, so starters and reserves can be compared.
Team impact
Good players make good teams. Each player gets a share of her team's adjusted margin, sized by how much she plays: one of five on the floor, for her share of the game.
team adjusted margin × (her minutes per game ÷ 40) ÷ 5
Eye test
Same rule as teams: at most 2 points, with the reason shown on her page.
Worked example
A guard scores 20 on 8-of-15 shooting and 3-of-4 free throws, with 2 offensive and 5 defensive rebounds, 1 steal, 4 assists, 1 block, 2 fouls and 3 turnovers. That line's Game Score is 15.9. If that's her average in 30 minutes a game, production is 15.9 × 40 ÷ 30 = 21.2. Her team is +20 after adjustment, so team impact is 20 × (30 ÷ 40) ÷ 5 = +3.0. With no eye-test note, her Freeman Rating is 24.2.
A player needs 100 minutes before she's ranked; below that she's listed without a rank.
What the ratings don't know
- Injuries and lineups. The rating sees results, not who played. That's the eye test's job.
- Neutral sites. Our data doesn't mark them, so tournament games count the listed home team as home.
- Defense in the box score. Steals and blocks are only part of defense; great positional defenders are underrated by production and partly rescued by team impact.
- Small samples. Early-season ratings move a lot. That's why they start near average.
Every formula here is tested in code against worked examples like the ones above before any number goes live. Ratings are estimates, not facts; they're for information and entertainment, not betting (see the terms).