Player Efficiency Rating, or PER, is a composite statistic that compresses a player's box score production into a single per-minute number, with the league average set at 15.
Player Efficiency Rating, universally called PER, was the first famous attempt to price a whole player in one number. Created by writer John Hollinger in the 1990s, it adds a player's positive box score contributions, scoring, rebounds, assists, steals, blocks, and subtracts the costs, missed shots, turnovers, fouls, then adjusts for minutes and pace. The scale is anchored so the league average is always 15, which makes seasons comparable at a glance.
Its famous seasons are quiz facts in themselves: the highest single season marks belong to the sport's peak performers, with Nikola Jokic, Giannis Antetokounmpo, and Wilt Chamberlain crowding the top of the list, and 30 stands as the informal line for an all time season. PER rewards volume and efficiency together and is openly biased toward frontcourt players and against defence the box score cannot see.
The statistic's cultural role outlasted its analytical reign: front offices moved to more specialized measures, but PER permanently changed fan language, proving one number could start an argument rather than end one. The glossary includes it as the ancestor of every composite that followed, and the anchor against which its successors define themselves.
In use"His player efficiency rating of thirty put the season among the most productive ever recorded."