This is the most useful piece of analysis in this entire series, and it takes about ninety seconds per player to run.
The problem it solves
You're looking at two players. Both averaged 28 SuperCoach points last season. Both are priced the same. One of them will be reliable all year. The other will hand you three unusable scores a month.
The averages won't tell you which is which. This test will.
The test
In NBL SuperCoach, a point scored is worth one SuperCoach point. Everything else — rebounds, assists, steals, blocks — is worth more per unit, and turnovers cost you.
Which means you can split any player's SuperCoach average into two parts with basic arithmetic:
SC average − points per game = SC from everything else
And then:
points per game ÷ SC average = points dependency %
That percentage is the whole ballgame.
Why it matters
Shooting is the most volatile thing a basketball player does. Rebounding, passing and defending are far more stable week to week — a player who averages 6 rebounds will get 4 on a bad night, not 0. But a player who averages 20 points can absolutely put up 6.
So a player's points dependency is really a measure of how badly a cold shooting night wrecks his score.
- A player at 40% dependency has 60% of his output coming from stable production. On a shocking shooting night he still returns something usable.
- A player at 80% dependency has almost nothing to fall back on. He shoots badly, you get nothing. There is no floor.
The thresholds
Use these as working rules:
| Dependency | Read |
|---|---|
| Under 50% | Genuinely well-rounded. Strong floor. These are your set-and-forget premiums. |
| 50–66% | Normal for a high-usage scorer. Acceptable, but expect variance. |
| 66–75% | Alarm bells. You're buying a scoring average and hoping. |
| Over 75% | One-dimensional. He will ruin rounds for you. |
Anything above 66% should make you look twice before you spend real money.
What it looks like in practice
The clearest illustration is an elite scorer with an extreme dependency. Take a genuinely great NBL shooter who averaged 18.4 points and 22.9 SuperCoach points across a season. Subtract the points and you're left with 4.5 SuperCoach points from every rebound, assist, steal and block he recorded combined. That's 80% dependency.
Now look at his actual game log for that year:
- 22 points → 21 SC
- 25 points → 25 SC
- 14 points → 12 SC
- 46 points → 55 SC
- 28 points → 28 SC
- 18 points → 18 SC
- 14 points → 14 SC
Notice what's happening: his SuperCoach score is almost exactly his point total, every single game. He is not a SuperCoach player who scores. He is a scorer, and SuperCoach is just counting his points back to you. One cold night and you've got a 12.
Compare that to a versatile forward from the same season averaging 15.4 points and 36.6 SuperCoach — 21.2 SC from non-scoring production, 42% dependency. He can shoot 3-for-14 and still hand you a 28.
That's the difference between a player you can trust in a double-game round and one you can't.
How to use it
On premiums. Before you spend big, run the test. A 45 SC average with 56% dependency is a fundamentally different asset to a 45 SC average with 75% dependency, even though the price will be similar.
On cash cows. Rookies shoot badly — that's what makes them rookies. A cheap player whose game is entirely scoring will produce single-digit scores regularly. A cheap player who rebounds and defends produces a floor even in bad games, which means a more stable rolling average, which means a more reliable price rise.
On imports. New arrivals often come with a reputation as a scorer. Run the test on their overseas numbers before you assume the SuperCoach output follows.
On captaincy and boosts. If you're amplifying a round, amplify the players with floors. Boosting a high-dependency scorer is a coin flip on his shooting.
The caveat
Dependency isn't a verdict on how good a basketballer someone is. Elite scorers win games. This is purely a measure of SuperCoach reliability, and there are seasons where you happily wear the volatility because the ceiling is worth it.
The point isn't "never own high-dependency players." The point is know which ones you own, and don't own six of them at once.