Liz Cambage

DAWG — Recorded Actions covers four selected recorded box-score actions: steals, blocks, offensive rebounds and assists. It omits unrecorded off-ball work such as screens, box-outs, rotations, deflections and closeouts. It is not the full four-pillar DAWG model, and it does not measure motivation, toughness, complete defensive effectiveness or total player value.

Each component is counted per 40 played minutes, including overtime. The observed rate is count ÷ (minutes ÷ 40). The adjusted rate blends that record with the league population, using a Gamma–Poisson model fitted on nearby seasons (2016, 2017, 2019, 2020) and never on the season being scored. Fewer minutes means more pull toward the league average; with many minutes the adjusted and observed rates nearly agree. For high-minute passers the pull is slightly too strong: on the 2026 holdout their adjusted assist rates predicted about 5% worse than their observed rates.

Each player is judged against her own position. Guards, forwards and centres come from her team's roster listing that season (the first letter of a hybrid such as G-F), not from the stats being ranked, so a guard's blocks are compared with other guards' and a centre's assists with other centres'. The DAWG index averages these position-relative percentiles; the league index beside it uses the whole league.

The league-wide reference is frozen and era-local: REG player-seasons in 2018 with at least 170 minutes and all four components observed (126 player-seasons, reference c53cdfb942e6). League rates have changed a lot since 1997 (assists per 40 are roughly 25–35% higher today), so a player is compared with her own era, and the index is not an absolute comparison across eras. The index is the plain average of the four component percentiles, with equal weights chosen as a first-version policy rather than learned basketball values. It is an average of percentiles, not the percentile of the index itself, a probability or points added. If any component is missing, the index is not shown, and the remaining components are never re-weighted.

Turnovers, personal fouls and defensive rebounds are shown separately and are not subtracted. Their meaning depends on role and game context, so the index is a positive-activity profile, not net value.

• Covers four selected recorded box-score actions only; unrecorded off-ball work (screens, box-outs, rotations, deflections, closeouts) is omitted.
• Percentiles compare each player with her own position group (guards, forwards or centres, from her team's roster listing) in the same era; they are not absolute comparisons across eras or positions. The league-wide index is shown alongside.