Rafters Pace

How it works

Same position, same number of seasons. A point guard in his 6th season at point guard is measured against the ten greatest point guards’ first 6 seasons at point guard, not their first 6 seasons in the league.

What counts as a season at a position

• Basketball-Reference lists one position for each player-season. A hybrid such as “SG-PG” counts at the first position listed (SG).
• A completed season counts at that position when he played at least 20 games that season. The 2026-27 season, still being played, counts as soon as he has played in it.
• Seasons don’t have to be in a row: seasons listed at another position, or with fewer games, are skipped. A player can have seasons at several positions.
• A traded player’s season is one season: Basketball-Reference’s combined row for all his teams (“2TM”, “3TM”).
• Basketball-Reference lists no position for most player-seasons from 1946-47 to 1949-50. Those seasons count at no position, so they sit outside every comparison and position list (their Win Shares still count in the all-positions career list).

Who the legends are

• At each position, the ten players with the most Win Shares (Basketball-Reference’s figure) in their seasons at that position, among players whose careers are over.
• “Career over” means he has not played in 2026-27 and was not on any team’s roster on Basketball-Reference on October 6, 2026. A player who sat out with an injury and is still on a roster is not counted as retired.
• Current players are never legends, so no one is measured against himself.
• The NBA and the BAA (1946-47 to 1948-49, which the NBA counts in its history) are included. ABA seasons are not.
• If a legend has fewer seasons at the position than the current player, all of his seasons there are used and he is flagged (“only 8 seasons at C”).

The pace score

100 means level with the legends’ average through the same number of seasons at the position. It is a weighted average of four parts, each his figure divided by the legends’ figure, times 100:

• points per game (35%), rebounds per game (20%), assists per game (20%) and true shooting percentage (25%), where true shooting = points ÷ (2 × (field-goal attempts + 0.44 × free-throw attempts)).
• The legends’ figure comes from their pooled totals: all their points over all their games, and so on, never an average of averages. Every rate, his or theirs, is computed from summed counting stats.
• 115 and up: ahead of the legends’ pace · 100 to 114: on a rafters pace · 85 to 99: within striking distance · below 85: behind the legends’ pace.

Stats that were not always kept

• The NBA did not record rebounds before 1950-51, minutes before 1951-52, steals and blocks before 1973-74, turnovers before 1977-78 or three-pointers before 1979-80 (there was no three-point line); games started are listed from 1981-82.
• We never fill those gaps. A per-game figure uses only the seasons that recorded the stat, and only those seasons’ games (for a legend who began before 1950-51, rebounds per game come from his later seasons only). A blank Basketball-Reference cell is treated the same way.
• The pace score uses points, rebounds, assists and true shooting because they exist for nearly every season of every legend. Steals, blocks, threes and minutes are shown but not scored; a dash means there is no figure for those seasons. If a part has no figure on one side, it is left out and the other weights are scaled up.
• There is no adjustment for era. Teams in the 1960s had far more possessions per game, so old per-game numbers run high; modern shooting is more efficient, so modern true shooting runs high.

The numbers

• Regular season only. Win Shares (WS) and WS per 48 minutes are Basketball-Reference’s.
• Ranks (“3rd of 11”) are among him and the legends; ties share a rank.
• The 2026-27 season is in progress: his figures for it are as of November 6, 2026, and his score will move as the season goes on.