How to Watch Any Player’s Field Goals Attempted

A few weeks (months?) ago, I did a mailbag post and community member Terd Ferguson’s Hat asked if Liberty Ballers could post a resources section on the site — a sort of checklist of the tools and sites we use when researching for our articles. I do plan on doing a very comprehensive resources/tool box index once the off-season rolls around, but this is not it (obviously). TFH’s question, though, is the inspiration for this post.

The NBA has a pretty insightful, if a bit wonky, stats database on their website. One of my favorite features is how you can view footage of (just about) every single field attempted by every single player on every single team. Below is a step-by-step guide on how to do exactly that.

Google and enter a player’s NBA.com stats profile

You don’t need to use Google to find a player’s profile — you can just search for the player on NBA.com. But I find using Google to be more expedient.

You want to make sure that you’re entering the player’s stats profile, which is easy to check for. (Stats.NBA.com)

The link will bring you to the following screen:

View the player’s Advanced Box Scores

Click the drop down arrow next to “Profile”.

Click on Advanced Box Scores under the drop down menu. You will come to the following screen:

Find the game you are curious about

Search through the database of games and find the one you are interested in. You can also use the filtering tools to build parameters. Maybe you’ve noticed an uptick in a player’s recent attempts or that he has been having a hot week. You can sort it by date, like this:

There’s a bunch of filtering options you can mess around with.

Click on FGA to arrive at video

Once you’ve settled on a game, click on the hyperlinked number under FGA.

This will bring you to our destination:

There’s a playlist below the video player and usually (but not always) all of the FGA by the player in question are listed.

The shot chart next to the video is interactive, so you can also view shots by location if that’s your thing.

Embedding

The NBA makes it super easy to download these videos. Click the three dots in the bottom right of the video player to bring up a menu, and simply click “download”.

Once you’ve downloaded the video that you would like to embed, just upload it to your preferred video hosting service. I’m partial to Streamable, which makes uploads possible in a matter of seconds. You don’t need to provide any information — no title, no meta description, no categories — and no requirement for an account (although it’s helpful to make one so you can always access your uploads).

The result:

Extra

As long as a stat is hyperlinked in the database, you can view the footage of it. Turnovers, assists, rebounds, whatever.

I noted above that the database is wonky. You’ll run into some hiccups along the way (missing video clips, footage other than what you expected). They can get a little frustrating but for what the site offers, it’s nothing that ruins the user experience.