Basketball Operations Brief

Gregory Spicer – Statistics – 01/06/2026

Inside The Game: The league’s new partnership with Amazon gives fans access to new, technologically advanced statistics. The first group of metrics was revealed a few months ago. As discussed in a previous publication, it broke down players’ ability to score and make difficult shots (formally known as shot difficulty).

Now, we have a new stat that further elevates the perspective fans can have on the offensive value players provide. This stat comes in the form of Gravity.

Gravity is a well-known concept that is commonly used when debating the value of players beyond the box score. Legends such as Wilt Chamberlain, Kobe Bryant, and Stephen Curry are the most prominent examples of high-gravity players.

We may not get to know, officially, how much attention Wilt and Kobe were attracting from defenses, but we finally have a stat to tell us just how much gravity Stephen Curry has. Despite being in his age-37 season, Curry remains atop the list.

But before we get into the leaders, what exactly is quantifiable gravity? Essentially, Amazon Web Services uses the same technology discussed in our shot difficulty breakdown to analyze how much defensive pressure a player draws.

Key aspects of the technology include:
• 3D pose detection on 29 points of a player’s body
• Tracked 60 times per second

The detection model then compares the defensive attention a player gets from every spot on the floor to the league-average defensive attention players receive from that same spot.

“The Eye Test Just Got Smarter” — NBA Website

This is then used to calculate a gravity score: “Average defensive pressure drawn by the player above expected in all situations.”

The “above expected” essentially means that the higher and more positive a player’s gravity, the more defensive attention they draw. If their number goes into the negatives, then they draw below-average gravity.

Adding to the depth of the analytic, we also get access to the league leaders in gravity for specific spots on the floor. We know who gets the most attention in the paint and behind the arc.

Leaders and Notable Standouts:

Curry leads the NBA with a 20.4 gravity score in 2025. Kevin Durant holds the second spot at 17.0. Not only does this show that the old heads still got it, but it also adds context to how dominant those Curry/KD Warriors teams were. They are both past their primes and still leading the NBA in gravity. Imagine what a nightmare it must’ve been to coach against these two in their primes, on the same team.

Unsurprisingly, shooting is the best way to stress out a defense. Not a single sub-30% three-point shooter sits on the first page of the statistic, and the top of the ranks are littered with low-usage sharpshooters. Players such as Duncan Robinson (11.4), Klay Thompson (10.2), Buddy Hield (6.2), and Tim Hardaway Jr. (5.6) are all in the top 50.

Luka Dončić and Durant headline the “on-ball gravity” section. Dončić leads it from the perimeter with a 19.9 score that validates his reputation as an engine for efficient offense. Durant sits at a league-high 12.8 for interior on-ball gravity.

The most outrageous stat is Curry’s off-ball gravity. He more than lives up to the hype with a whopping 29.6 perimeter off-ball gravity score – the highest of any of the four quadrants (on/off ball + perimeter/interior). We can only dream of what these numbers looked like in his prime.

Durant takes another quadrant with an NBA-leading 14.9 interior off-ball gravity score. He’s such an unguardable shooter that it’s easy to forget what his bread and butter is. For years, Durant has been one of the most efficient finishers in the NBA, and now we have more proof of that dominance. I will always believe that Durant has the most underrated paint presence of all time, and this supports that argument.

Full Statistics Can Be Found On The NBA Website https://www.nba.com/inside-the-game/player/gravity