Win Shares - WS

What is Win Shares - WS?

A metric that estimates the number of wins a player produces for his team. This can be calculated on its own, or by finding a player's Offensive Win Shares and Defensive Win Shares, and adding those together. This number is generally calculated using full-season statistics.

Sporting Charts explains Win Shares - WS

Bill James first developed the concept of "win shares" as a way to determine how many victories a baseball player contributed to his team each year. Once NBA analysts began to use advanced statistics, it was logical to see if James' concepts could be carried over to NBA basketball. As it turns out, win shares can be calculated for basketball, and have become yet another metric we can use to determine what impact individual players have on their team's success.

Some of the all-time leaders in this category include Shaquille O'Neal, Charles Barkley, Moses Malone, Jerry West and Robert Parish.