Usage rate (USG%)

Usage rate estimates the share of a basketball team's offensive possessions that end with a given player taking a shot, turning the ball over, or drawing shooting fouls, while that player is on the floor. A high usage rate means the offense runs through that player far more often than an average teammate would see.

The published formula, most commonly Dean Oliver's version, scales a player's field-goal attempts, free-throw attempts and turnovers by the team's own pace and total possessions, then adjusts for minutes played, so a bench player and a starter can be compared on equal footing. A player with 30% usage is involved in roughly three in ten of the team's possessions while on court, well above the 20% that is average when five players share possessions evenly.

Usage rate matters because it contextualizes efficiency stats like true shooting percentage and effective field goal percentage: it is generally harder to stay efficient at high usage, since a player is taking tougher, more heavily defended shots later in the shot clock. The common misreading treats high usage itself as a mark of quality; usage measures how often a player has the ball at the moment of a possession-ending action, not how well they used it. Coaches and scouts read usage alongside efficiency and box plus-minus together, never usage alone.