Template talk:NBA player statistics start

Row template requested
Would it be helpful to use a row template, something like This would at least help make sure the alignment is consistent, make it more difficult to accidentally put numbers in the wrong column and easily change the order if we want to. In the future we may also want columns of the raw data (like FGM, FGA) to dynamically generate the FG%, and eventually take advantage of a (yet undeveloped) software feature to update the career averages every time the stats for the current season are updated. — CharlotteWebb


 * While a row template may cause less confusion, I don't think it's necessary because the table is already very simple. Besides, the extra templates make the pages load slower and the heading is sufficient for maintaining a standard.  Regarding the FGM/A, I feel that everything besides the year, team, and GP/S should be averages because totals aren't useful to the average basketball readers; FG% can be copypasted from the player's NBA.com stats page.  If you want a third opinion, perhaps we could ask WT:NBA? — LOL T/C 05:27, 10 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I guess I'm an above-average basketball reader, how flattering [[Image:Smiley.svg|15px|]]. Even if you didn't want the FG/3PT/FTs M/A to be visible, calculating the percents and averages based on the raw numbers would leave less room for error and whole numbers are easier to spot-check. On the other hand it would also be cool to run a bot to update players' season/career stats after every game. Then if any errors are introduced they'll be overwritten fairly quickly and not much else would matter. Hmm...
 * One other thing I noticed is that there is sometimes the team-season article (e.g. 1997-98 Chicago Bulls season) is linked from the the rows of the stats table, but most of them don't exist yet, and some of the ones that do exist aren't linked to because they were created after the stats table was added. It's silly to try to manually keep up with that, so I would suggest starting off every valid team-season article as a redirect to the league-season article or using a row template with an #ifexist function to find the most specific article to link to. — CharlotteWebb 15:49, 10 August 2008 (UTC)
 * I don't see how whole numbers would be easier to spot-check, as the percentages are always a decimal followed by three numbers, or "1.000". There shouldn't be any errors with copypasting, but assuming there are, doubling the number of fields to update would double the room for error whether you're copypasting or entering the numbers manually.  The only advantage I see now is for players who have accumulated many shot attempts; for example, 601/1500 would display as ".401", and if an editor were to make a typo and write "602" instead of "601", the output would still be correct because of the rounding.  However, this would have to be quite coincidental, and I don't feel that's it worth making a template.  I am also working on a bot to update the stats throughout the season.— LOL T/C 17:53, 10 August 2008 (UTC)
 * Really late to this - but is the header including the percentage sign appropriately? 1.000 as mentioned is 1 in 100, not 100 out of a 100? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 90.241.197.102 (talk) 11:09, 22 June 2023 (UTC)
 * In the NBA, "percentages" are expressed in decimal . 100/100 would be 1.000.—Bagumba (talk) 11:29, 22 June 2023 (UTC)
 * I would rather avoid the inconsistency of having some rows link to NBA season articles and others to team season articles. AutoLink could work if all targets are team season articles, but we may want to make sure any output changes are OK with WP:NBA. — LOL T/C 17:53, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

Documentation requested
Sabbatino, Bagumba, LOL, this and related templates are undocumented. At least, please document the usage. —Anomalocaris (talk) 04:16, 9 May 2019 (UTC)