Block Percentage
How to understand “block percentage”?
What does “block percentage” describe?
What is the formula of block percentage?
Block Percentage is a metric that estimates the percentage of offensive 2-point field goal attempts a defensive player blocks while they are on the court. Block Percentage can also be calculated for a team rather than an individual player. Because minutes played are not factored into the equation, this is a simpler calculation that simply divides the number of blocked shots by the number of their opponent’s two-point shots in a single game.
In an effort to determine how much impact players have on their teams, sports statisticians have developed metrics such as Block Percentage. Blocked shots don’t tell the entire story in terms of defensive effectiveness, but examining Block Percentage can give us clues as to how effective a player is on the defensive end, since about half of those shot attempts would have resulted in scores had the block not occurred.
Although the formula itself looks a bit more complicated, the basic idea is to look at all the 2-point field goal attempts a team had while a certain defensive player was in the game, and find the percentage of those possessions in which the defensive player blocked a shot. This value indicates, in part, how much defensive impact a player has on their opponents.
BLK% – Block Percentage – the formula is 100 * (BLK * (Tm MP / 5)) / (MP * (Opp FGA – Opp 3PA))
Examples of how Block Percentage is used in commentary: Mutombo’s exceptional height helped him to earn one of the highest block percentages in NBA history.