[OC] The 2025–26 Most Average NBA Player Award goes to Gui Santos
Who is the most average player in the league?
To determine the most average player in the NBA, several different factors must be considered.
First, it is important to establish the biological frame of the average player.
The average NBA player in 2025–26 was approximately:
Source: https://www.basketball-reference.com/leagues/NBA_stats_per_game.html
That gives us the physical shell of the average NBA player.
Now that shell must be filled with something more substantial: the statistical production of a typical rotation player.
Because we are searching for the player positioned in the middle of the NBA population, the median is more appropriate than the mean.
The minimum eligibility threshold was set at 58 games.
Players who changed teams were represented by their combined full-season statistics rather than being counted separately for each team.
A total of 234 players qualified.
The median player among that group averaged:
Rounded into a recognizable box-score line, the average 2025–26 NBA player was approximately a:
For every eligible player, I calculated his distance from the median in all five traditional categories:
Each difference was converted into a z-score:
| Statistic | Median | Standard deviation |
|---|---|---|
| Points | 10.65 | 6.296 |
| Rebounds | 4.00 | 2.209 |
| Assists | 2.20 | 1.920 |
| Steals | 0.80 | 0.346 |
| Blocks | 0.40 | 0.423 |
The large scoring standard deviation shows why Gui Santos averaging 1.45 fewer points than the median is not particularly significant.
That scoring difference is only approximately 0.23 standard deviations.
Meanwhile, a difference of 0.3 steals would be approximately 0.87 standard deviations, making it far more statistically meaningful.
Once all five statistics were placed on the same scale, I combined them using root-mean-square standardized distance:
A perfect median player would receive a score of zero.
The lower the score, the more statistically average the player.
Squaring the z-scores also prevents a player from hiding one extreme trait behind several average ones.
A player who is ordinary in four categories but an elite shot blocker is not truly average.
The top 12 were:
| Rank | Player | PTS | REB | AST | STL | BLK | Standardized distance |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Gui Santos | 9.2 | 3.9 | 2.3 | 0.9 | 0.3 | 0.199 |
| 2 | Kevin Huerter | 10.0 | 3.5 | 2.6 | 0.9 | 0.5 | 0.221 |
| 3 | Sandro Mamukelashvili | 11.2 | 4.9 | 1.9 | 0.8 | 0.5 | 0.225 |
| 4 | Nique Clifford | 8.6 | 3.8 | 2.4 | 0.9 | 0.3 | 0.230 |
| 5 | Tristan da Silva | 9.9 | 3.7 | 1.6 | 0.9 | 0.3 | 0.232 |
| 6 | Cody Williams | 8.8 | 3.0 | 2.0 | 0.8 | 0.4 | 0.246 |
| 7 | Kyle Kuzma | 13.0 | 4.5 | 2.7 | 0.7 | 0.4 | 0.261 |
| 8 | Jarace Walker | 11.6 | 5.1 | 2.5 | 0.8 | 0.3 | 0.265 |
| 9 | Aaron Wiggins | 9.4 | 3.1 | 1.7 | 0.9 | 0.4 | 0.267 |
| 10 | Devin Vassell | 13.9 | 4.0 | 2.5 | 0.9 | 0.4 | 0.274 |
| 11 | Jaylon Tyson | 13.2 | 5.1 | 2.2 | 0.8 | 0.4 | 0.287 |
| 12 | Jordan Miller | 10.0 | 3.0 | 2.3 | 0.8 | 0.2 | 0.297 |
Gui Santos finished first.
Santos averaged:
| G | GS | MPG | PTS | REB | AST | STL | BLK |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 68 | 30 | 20.5 | 9.2 | 3.9 | 2.3 | 0.9 | 0.3 |
His standardized deviations from the median were:
| Statistic | Santos | Median | Z-score |
|---|---|---|---|
| Points | 9.2 | 10.65 | −0.230 |
| Rebounds | 3.9 | 4.00 | −0.045 |
| Assists | 2.3 | 2.20 | +0.052 |
| Steals | 0.9 | 0.80 | +0.289 |
| Blocks | 0.3 | 0.40 | −0.237 |
He was within 0.30 standard deviations of the median in all five categories.
His two closest categories were almost comically precise:
His largest difference was steals, where he finished only 0.289 standard deviations above the middle.
Huerter may be the more obvious choice.
His basic line was:
That certainly looks average.
He finished second in the main standardized model, only slightly behind Santos.
However, Huerter’s profile was not quite as centrally located once the relationships between categories were considered.
Huerter is also far more identifiable.
He has red hair.
He has been called Red Velvet.
He has spent most of his career being discussed as a three-point shooter, he was elite in the Light the Beam Kings season.
Santos, by comparison, does not have one obvious statistical or stylistic characteristic that he’s known for.
Mamukelashvili actually performed extremely well in the statistical tests.
He averaged:
He finished third in the primary model and second across the four-method average ranking.
However, his efficiency was far too impressive:
He also finished 10th in Sixth Man of the Year voting.
More importantly, his name is Sandro Mamukelashvili.
No player with that name can win the average player award.
Da Silva may be the best spiritual candidate.
At approximately 6-foot-8 and 217 pounds, he is extremely close to the 6-foot-7, 216-pound biological average.
He averaged:
He appeared in 77 games, started 34 and averaged 24.7 minutes.
That is an almost perfect average-player workload.
He is also difficult to describe.
Ask the average NBA fan what Tristan da Silva does well and the answer will likely be:
That is an outstanding answer in this competition.
However, his assists were farther below the median than Santos’, and his overall standardized distance was slightly larger.
Da Silva may be the more average physical specimen.
Santos was the more average statistical player.
Gui Santos is a 23-year-old Warriors forward who appeared in 68 games and started 30.
He averaged 20.5 minutes.
That is a nearly perfect amount of playing time for this award.
He was not a full-time starter.
He was not an occasional garbage-time player.
He was not a sixth-man candidate.
He was not a specialist who entered exclusively to shoot, defend or rebound.
Santos shot:
He was efficient, but not so efficient that his shooting became the defining feature of his season.
He can shoot a little.
He can pass a little.
He can rebound a little.
He can defend a little.
He occasionally starts.
He frequently comes off the bench.
“Gui Santos” sounds like a player generated halfway through the second round of a basketball video game draft class.
He is approximately 6-foot-6 rather than 6-foot-7 and is lighter than 216 pounds.
He is also only 23 years old, somewhat younger than the average NBA player. But overall, I think I can make the judgement.
The 2025–26 Most Average NBA Player Award goes to Gui Santos!