Houston’s frontline has helped it become one of the best possession teams this season.
The NBA remains a make-or-miss league.
The factors that most correlate with success in this league are how effectively a team shoots and how effectively its opponents shoot. This season, teams with a higher effective field goal percentage than their opponent are 323-77 (.808) through Thursday.
Effective field goal percentage = (FGM + (0.5 * 3PM)) / FGA
But shooting is somewhat out of a team’s control. Sometimes, a great shooter has an off night. Sometimes, an opponent gets ridiculously hot. Some teams don’t have a lot of good shooters, and some don’t have a star who can generate good shots.
That means some teams will prioritize getting more shots than their opponent. This season, winning the possession game is a bigger point of emphasis across the league.
1. The possession game is about activity
Teams get more shots than their opponent via turnovers and rebounds. One keeps the offense from getting a shot, while the other gets the offense an additional opportunity.
Taking care of the ball and securing the defensive glass are important, but the two factors that correlate most to the overall possession game are opponent turnover rate and offensive rebounding percentage.
Size matters, of course. Big bodies get rebounds and long arms get deflections. The Houston Rockets have retained almost 50% of available offensive rebounds when Kevin Durant, Jabari Smith Jr., Alperen Sengun and Steven Adams have all been on the floor.
But forcing turnovers and grabbing offensive boards also come from activity. An aggressive defense forces more turnovers than a conservative one. And a team is more likely to get an offensive rebound when more guys crash the offensive glass.
2. Rockets, Pistons winning the possession game
Winning the possession game gives a team more shot opportunities. A shot opportunity is a field goal attempt or a trip to the line, and we estimate a team’s total (or opponent total) with the following formula …
Shot opportunities = FGA + (0.44 * FTA)
Here are the teams with the best shot-opportunity differentials through Thursday, with where they rank in turnover rate, offensive rebounding percentage, opponent turnover rate and defensive rebounding percentage…
Best shot-opportunity differential, 2025-26
Team
TO%
OREB%
OppTO%
DREB%
SO Diff.
Houston
28
1
20
11
+4.2
Detroit
21
2
3
15
+4.1
New York
4
4
14
8
+3.9
Cleveland
6
15
6
13
+3.4
Boston
2
7
8
30
+3.2
Some notes …
- The Rockets rank 28th in turnover rate (16.3 per 100 possessions), but are the best offensive rebounding team in the 30 years of play-by-play data, having retained 41.7% of available offensive boards. Taking away second-chance points and calculating initial offensive efficiency, they’d rank eighth with 102.3 points scored per 100 possessions. But with second-chance points included, they rank third (121.2 per 100).
- The Pistons are the only team in the top five in both offensive rebounding percentage and opponent turnover rate. They were fourth in shot-opportunity differential before Thursday, when they had the largest differential for any team this season (131-105) in Dallas. Unfortunately, they also had their worst shooting game of the season and lost in overtime.
- The Knicks are the only team that ranks in the top five in both turnover rate and offensive rebounding percentage. Mitchell Robinson has grabbed 24.4% of available offensive rebounds while he’s been on the floor, what would by the highest rate (by a huge margin) for any player in the 30 seasons of play-by-play data. But the Knicks have won the possession game more with Miles McBride (+8.4 shooting opportunities per 48 minutes) or OG Anunoby (+6.0 per 48) on the floor.
- The Suns rank eighth in shot-opportunity differential, having ranked 28th (minus-4.3) last season and seen the league’s biggest jump by a huge margin. They’ve seen the league’s biggest jumps in both offensive rebounding percentage and opponent turnover rate.
3. Wizards, Bucks are losing the possession game
The Bucks have the league’s fourth biggest drop in defensive rebounding percentage from 2024-25.
Here are the teams with the worst shot-opportunity discrepancies …
Worst shot-opportunity discrepancy, 2025-26
Team
TO%
OREB%
OppTO%
DREB%
SO Diff.
Washington
24
24
30
29
-6.7
Milwaukee
17
30
15
24
-4.6
Dallas
18
27
25
16
-4.1
LA Clippers
30
22
24
18
-3.7
Chicago
14
25
27
7
-3.5
Some notes…
- The Wizards‘ discrepancy would be the fourth worst in NBA history and the worst in the last 18 seasons (since the 2007-08 Suns). For the second straight season, they’re the only team that ranks in the bottom 10 in turnover rate, offensive rebounding percentage, opponent turnover rate and defensive rebounding percentage.
- The Bucks rank last in offensive rebounding percentage for the second straight season, and they’ve seen the league’s fourth biggest drop in defensive rebounding percentage from last season.
- As noted above, offensive rebounding percentage and opponent turnover rate are the factors that correlate most with shot-opportunity differential. The Bulls and Mavs are the two teams that rank in the bottom six in both.
- The Warriors have seen the league’s biggest drop in shot-opportunity differential, from +3.8 (fourth) last season to -1.1 (20th) this season. They’ve seen the league’s second biggest jump in turnover rate, it’s fifth biggest drop in offensive rebounding percentage and its sixth biggest drop in defensive rebounding percentage.
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John Schuhmann has covered the NBA for more than 20 years. You can e-mail him here, find his archive here and follow him on Bluesky.
