In the Sonics-Rockets game, Rafer played 40+ minutes, shot 5-17, scored 12 pts, and had 6 assists and 3 steals, and his +/- was +7. Earl Watson, on the other hand, was 4-8, scored 9 pts, and had 9 assists to just 1 TO, and even had a steal I think....yet his +/- was -8. Can someone please explain this to me? What exactly goes into calculatin a +/-?
Its just the points differential when that player was on the floor. SO when Rafer was on the court, the rockets outscored Seattle by 7 and when Watson was on the court, Seattle was outscored by 8.
It means the Sonics got outscored when Earl Watson was on the floor, and the Rockets outscored the the Sonics when Rafer was on the floor.
As Magic once put it, a player can affect a game from 6 different aspects: scoring, rebouding, assisting, defense, leadership, and (?), and the latter 3 doesn't show on score board.
Rafer dominated in the (?) category Safe to say Rafer had a bad night... but against one of the worst teams in the league, it's probably not going to matter when you've got Yao and Tracy playing like that.
Rafer is the best player on this team to set the offense. That's how he gets the +8 despite a bad shooting night. It's a part of his game that no one notices.
Gary - "(?) = Trash Talking." I do believe trash talking when you can back it up gives you a huge mental edge over your opponent. Payton did it. Jordan did it. Bird did it. And the guy below did it.
I don't think the +/- stat is worth all that much. Look at today's game: I think Landry's the only Rocket with a - on the day.
because they didn't sub in and out at the same time. it is the +/- factor when they are actually on the court
Landry didn't fare well on defense against Wilcox. Bonzi also had a negative +/- on the day (vindicating DaDakota, who kept on whining about how Bonzi was hurting the team during PBP ).
Nah, I'm not a Rafer-hater at all. Actually, I think he's the best PG we have when it comes to getting the team set up. As someone earlier in this thread said, I guess that's what explains the difference in his stats, and his +/-. Thanks to everyone for the explanations, by the way.
When I see that -4 next to Landry, I don't draw the conclusion that he therefore hurt the team. I try to think back on what the team was doing in those minutes. It forces you to reflect on what happened on both ends, where the defenses breakdowns occurred and why, or why certain offensive possessions didn't lead anywhere. That's the value of a +/- stat, and I believe that's how the coaches look at it. When the only stats recorded for players is points, rebounds, etc., we tend to forget all the other important stuff that goes on that aren't tracked by the stat keeper. The basic problem with these numbers, all of them really, is that we assume they are direct reflection on the individual performance. They are not. When Landry was in the game, the Rockets happened to be outscored by the opponent over the course of his minutes. That shouldn't reflect directly on him. Similarly, if a player doesn't grab X rebounds, or doesn't score Y points, that's not necessarily a direct reflection on him either. Context gets lost too often with these statistics.
