Field Goals
Field Goals Made (FGM) is how many shots from the field a player converts, anything that is not a free throw. Field Goals Attempted (FGA) is how many he took. Together they show how much a player shoots and how often it goes in.
What Field Goals measures
Points alone do not tell you how a player scored. Field goal numbers show shot volume and raw make rate, the base under every efficiency metric that came later. Twenty points on 7-of-12 is a very different night from 20 on 8-of-22.
How Field Goals is calculated
FG% = FGM ÷ FGA × 100
Divide shots made by shots taken and multiply by 100.
FGM: Field Goals Made / FGA: Field Goals Attempted / FG%: Field Goal Percentage
The catch
Percentage without volume means nothing
A player who takes two shots and makes both shoots 100% and tells you almost nothing. Field goal percentage only matters once the volume is high enough to be real.
Not all field goals are equal
A made two and a made three both count as one make but are worth different points. That is exactly why True Shooting and effective field goal percentage were invented, to weight makes by what they are worth.
Seen in a game
In 2025–26 Kai Jones of Anadolu Efes shot an absurd 92.1% from the field, on only a couple of attempts a night. He is a lob threat and rim-runner, so almost every shot is a dunk or a layup. The number is real, and it is also the point: it tells you what he does with his shots, not whether he can create one. Compare Sasha Vezenkov, who made 6.6 field goals a game at 54.7% on a far harder diet of threes, pull-ups and post-ups. Volume with efficiency is the hard part.
Common questions
- What is a field goal in basketball?
A field goal is any basket scored from the floor, either a two-pointer or a three-pointer. Free throws are not field goals.
- What does FG mean in basketball stats?
FG stands for field goals. You will usually see it as made-attempted, for example 8/15, meaning eight made on fifteen attempts. FG% is the share that went in.
- What is the difference between field goals and points?
Field goals count made shots from the floor; points count their value plus free throws. A two and a three are both one field goal, but one is worth more points.
