Field goal percentage is the share of a player's or team's field goal attempts that are made, calculated as made field goals divided by attempts.
Field goal percentage is the oldest efficiency number in the sport: shots made divided by shots taken, printed in every box score since box scores existed. Its simplicity is its history. For most of basketball's life it was the shooting statistic, and its season leaderboards were a roll of centres whose attempts came from arm's length, since the closest shots produce the highest percentages.
The three point era exposed its blind spot, which is why this glossary also carries true shooting percentage: field goal percentage treats a made three and a made layup identically as makes, and ignores free throws entirely, so it can rank a less efficient scorer above a better one. Analysts built its successors to fix exactly that.
It survives because it is honest about the one thing it measures and because its records are famous. DeAndre Jordan's career mark above sixty seven percent and the seventy percent seasons of rim bound centres are standard facts, as is Wilt Chamberlain's run of field goal percentage titles in an era of volume. Quiz stems still say field goal percentage constantly, usually testing whether the reader knows the difference between the raw number and the adjusted ones that replaced it.
In use"The centre led the league in field goal percentage by living at the rim."