Every fan has an instinct about their team's key players. Remove this person and we struggle. Keep them performing and we win. But instinct is unreliable — we remember the big games and forget the quiet ones. The Player Impact tool exists to replace instinct with something more honest.
The idea is simple. Pick a player, pick a stat, set a threshold. The tool splits every game of the season into two groups: games where the player was above that threshold, and games where they weren't. Then it shows you the team's win rate in each group. The gap between those two numbers is the answer to the question every fan is actually asking: does this player change outcomes?
Mfiondu Kabengele at Dubai Basketball
Kabengele's Player Impact page is one of the clearest examples of individual influence you'll find in this season's data. When his PIR was above his season average of 17.4, Dubai Basketball won 65% of those games — 11 wins from 17. When his PIR dropped below his average, Dubai won just 37% — 7 wins from 19.
A 28-point gap. That's not noise. That's a player whose performance directly shapes his team's results.
Dubai Basketball is not a team with the depth to absorb a bad night from their best player. When Kabengele is efficient — contributing across scoring, rebounding and the other actions that PIR captures — they're a competitive team. When he's not, they usually aren't. The tool makes that relationship visible in a way that watching highlights or checking the box score never quite does.
What the tool lets you do
You can filter by any stat — PIR, points, rebounds, assists, eFG% — and set different thresholds: above average, 5+, 10+, 15+. The same player can look very different depending on which stat you measure. A player who seems essential by points might be less impactful by PIR, or vice versa. That flexibility is where the real insight lives.
Kabengele's page is free to view — you can explore it directly at Mfiondu Kabengele. To run the same analysis on any other player in the league, you'll need a subscription. The tool is available to subscribers in the Players section.
