A method has been developed to explicitly show how effective a scorer is. By defining exactly what it means to score efficiently, the mass of offensive statistics in use now can be collapsed into one piece of information. That piece of information is called a floor percentage. The entire purpose of an offense is to score as often as possible while making as few mistakes as possible. When a team scores, whether just one point on a free throw, two points on a field goal, or three points any way it can, and the other team takes possession of the ball, then the first team has just had a scoring possession.
Any time there is a change of possession, then one total possession is accrued.
The efficiency of an individual scorer is determined by how often he helps his team score as compared to how often he contributes to the failure of his team to score. An assist does represent a scoring possession, but it cannot be counted exactly as one. Counting an assist and a field goal each as one scoring possession would sum to two scoring possessions for a team when there is only one. Let's look at the Magic Johnson-Patrick Ewing comparison made earlier. Most people would agree that Johnson is a better offensive player, but field goal percentage and points per game stats from last year don't reflect that.