Reading a hex shot chart
Hex size is volume. Hex color is efficiency vs. league. Here's the rest.
Thesis
A hex shot chart looks dense at first but it's actually just two simple channels overlaid on the same picture. Hex size encodes one thing: how often the player shoots from that spot, and hex color encodes a completely different thing: how well he converts from that spot relative to the league average. Once you stop reading them as one variable, the chart becomes a fingerprint of how a scorer (or a whole offense) actually plays. A raw FG% number cannot do this. A make/miss list cannot do this.
Hypothesis
A reader who learns the size-vs-color distinction can classify any player into one of three or four offensive archetypes from a single chart in under five seconds, without ever looking at a name, a position, or a stat line. The chart literally renders the role the player is performing.
Data
- Hex diameter
- ~1.5 ft of court
- Color baseline
- league FG% at the same exact spot
- Shots tracked across the league
- ~1.2M per season
Commentary
Three archetypes you can pick out almost immediately once you separate the two channels.
A star is warm to hot everywhere with big hexes across the floor. Their volume is spread: they get shots at the rim, on pull-ups, from above the break, sometimes from mid-range. And the color follows the volume: the bins are producing at or above the league baseline. This is what a #1 scoring option looks like on a chart. They're not just shooting a lot; they're shooting a lot and finishing.
A specialist is the opposite: tiny everywhere except two or three specific spots, where the hexes are huge and bright. The two corners are the canonical example. The chart screams "this player has one job, and the offense is built to get him to those spots." Below-average volume around the lane, above-average at his sweet spots. The role works only if the team can generate clean looks at his bins; the same chart on a worse-spaced roster would look thin and useless.
A mid-range scorer is the throwback: big hexes in the elbow / free-throw extended area, smaller-than-expected hexes from the corners. Sometimes warm, sometimes neutral. The chart tells you the player can hit those shots, but the system isn't running the modern offense around them. This archetype is rare and shrinking; when you see it, it's almost always a star who absorbs hard isolations because his team can't generate easier looks elsewhere.
There's also a useful negative read: a player whose hexes are big at the rim but cold-colored. That's a finisher problem. Lots of volume, but the conversion rate isn't keeping up with league average for those same shots. Either the defense is squeezing them, the player is forcing layups through traffic, or the touch isn't there. Either way, it's a sell.
Conclusion
Two questions to ask any chart. First: where is the volume? Look at the biggest hexes and that's the player's diet. Second: is the color following the volume? If the biggest hexes are warm, the role is working. If the biggest hexes are gray or cold, the player is taking shots his team needs him to take but not making them at an above-league rate. The chart makes this obvious in a way the box score never will.
Try it
Browse every active player at the players page → and try the three-archetype read on the first five names you click. The pattern shows up faster than you'd think.