Methodology
How Hoopology tags shots into zones, for shot charts, game zone splits, lineups and scoring profiles.
Shot zones
Every shot lands in one of five zones:
- Rim: finishes at the basket (the rule is below).
- Paint: other two-pointers inside the lane: floaters, hooks, short jumpers.
- Mid-Range: two-pointers outside the lane.
- Corner 3: threes from either corner, below the break in the arc.
- Above the Break 3: every other three.
What counts as a rim attempt
The NBA logs each shot at the spot the scorer marks. For a layup or dunk that is often where the play started, not where it finished. A cut is marked where the pass was caught, and a drive where the player gathered. So a dunk can be logged 5 feet out, just outside the 4-foot restricted area, even though the ball went in at the rim. Counting only the restricted area misses about a quarter of all layups.
So Hoopology uses the type of shot as well as where it was logged:
| Shot | Counts as Rim when logged |
|---|---|
| Any shot | inside the restricted area (4 ft) |
| Dunks, alley-oops, tip-ins, putbacks | anywhere within 12 ft |
| Cutting layups | 6 ft or closer |
| Driving and running layups | 5 ft or closer |
| Other layups | 4 ft or closer |
Distances are rounded to the nearest foot, the same as shown on shot details across the site. A layup shown at 5 ft is 5 ft here too. Floaters, hooks and jumpers never count as Rim outside the restricted area: a floater is the opposite of a rim attempt.
Why these numbers
They come from every shot of the 2025-26 regular season (220,000 shots):
- Half of all layups are logged within 2.5 ft, but 23% are logged outside the restricted area, mostly driving and cutting layups.
- The longest genuine dunks are logged 10–12 ft out: cutters and alley-oops marked where they caught the ball. Beyond 12 ft a “dunk” is a mis-logged spot.
- With this rule, 90% of layups count as Rim (up from 77%), and teams average 29 rim attempts a game instead of 26.
Rim FG% comes out about 2 points lower than restricted-area FG%. That is expected. The layups that move into Rim are contested, off-balance finishes that go in about 40% of the time. Before, those misses were charged to the Paint.
Where it applies
From the 2013-14 season on, the rule applies everywhere on Hoopology: shot charts, game zone tables, Team Comparison, Lineups, On/Off, scoring profiles, the dashboards, the stats tables, leaders and date ranges. Every zone count is rebuilt from the shots themselves. “Paint (Non-Rim)” is the rest of the lane, and “Paint (Incl. Rim)” is the whole lane.
Seasons before 2013-14 still use the NBA's own splits in their stored stats, with the strict 4-ft restricted area, so their Rim numbers run a little lower. Their shot charts use the rule.