http://www.nba.com/statistics/plusminus/plusminus_sort.jsp?pcomb=1&season=22012&split=9&team=Rockets Parsons is in last place with -41. Why do you think that is?
Jeremy Lin, Patterson, and Parsons are all in the bottom 3. And we are at a .500 record so having a -41(points) is not that big of a shock. This stat is pretty meaningless in my opinion.
Per 48 minutes, it comes to -2.3. 2nd year player, playing 38 minutes a game as a starter for a .500 team. Being perhaps our best perimeter defender, he probably also shares the court more often with the opposing team's best scorers. So, not a surprise that would be the differential when he's on the floor. (And just because you can't take that number on its own and directly know how well Parsons has been playing doesn't mean its useless or meaningless.)
The only sport +/- is helpful for is in a sport like soccer or hockey, where the goals aren't as frequent.
Why would anyone think that +/- stats -- i.e. knowing how well the team is playing when a given player or players are on the floor -- is not helpful? All factual information is potentially helpful if you know what to do with it, and its potentially misleading if you don't know what to do with it. That's the case for any stat, including PPG, PER, +/-, whatever. The main mistake people make with unadjusted +/- is to assume that its a player rating of some kind. It isn't. It reflects how well the team is playing with that player. Its more about understanding which combinations are working well than how good one guy is.
How is total +/- important? He could have lost 3 games playing every minute by 30 each (-90) but won 30 games by 1 each (+30), be on a team with a 30-3 record, but still have a -60....
Shouldn't we be looking at per game Also, remember the math of +/- By definition, it is controlled by the teams overall pt differential unless normalized
That's an extreme and unrealistic case. If a team is getting blown out in a quarter of their games, and barely winning the rest, then they are probably not nearly as good as their record. With enough minutes, I do think its more helpful to look at +/- per 48 minutes. Personally, its easier for me to see that number and gauge at what level the team is playing while the player is on the floor. Here are some +/- splits that were interesting to me: Code: [B]min +/- +/-/48min[/B] Parsons w/ Harden 675 -2 -0.1 Parsons w/o Harden 190 -37 -9.4 Lin w/ Harden 675 -14 -0.1 Lin w/o Harden 111 -12 -5.2 Parsons+Lin w/ Harden 556 -2 -0.2 Parsons+Lin w/o Harden 72 -26 -17.4 The simplest explanation might simply be that Parsons has played 190 minutes without Harden on the floor, and in 118 of those minutes he also didn't have Lin on the floor.
Delfino is the best this year and was the worst last year with the Bucks. And he's been playing worse (struggling with his shooting and turnovers) so far. This stat unadjusted (or however the advanced stat is called) is worthless.
To me, it is product of being second best player on team. Of the top 20 most used lineups according to 82 games, Parsons and/or Harden is always on the court. Delfino is the only other wing played regularly. Starting lineup just isn't good enough to beat other starting lineups usually and racks up a negative score to start most halves. Parsons spends a lot of time without Harden keeping Rockets in game. Rockets score a lot of points when Harden is going against non-starting lineups without Parsons. Delfino looks great in +/- since he doesn't have to play against the other teams starting lineup much. The starting lineup is clearly the problem. The Rockets are better with Harden/Delfino than they do with Parsons/Delfino. I think the starting lineup would suffer even more greatly if Delfino replaced Parsons. Based on how Parsons is playing when he isn't with starting lineup, I suspect he would be the +/- darling on Rockets instead of Delfino if they switched roles. One cool thing about looking at the individual +/-'s for Harden, Parsons, and Delfino, you can see that the Rockets bench is playing well. Other teams are having trouble with Harden when they don't have their starting lineup out there. Lineups lead by Parsons are winning usually, but not enough to erase the negative caused by the start of each half. The solution for Parsons' "problem" with +/- is getting a better starting lineup by either letting this team develop or by improving the PG, PF, or Center...or SF and let Parsons dominate backups.
Bolded part in a nutshell. Our starters generally get killed by opposing starters, and we generally start slowly. Also, quite frankly, Parsons isn't nearly the isolation defender he was last year. Wing players are going off on the Rockets all the time, despite Parsons defensive reputation. Rather than accusing stats of being useless, perhaps we should look at the great job our bench has done to start the season. You may think Delfino and Douglas are scrubs, but they outperform their counterparts along with Greg Smith. And they play off of Harden better than our starters.
Lin,Ppat, and Parson have the three worst +/- on the team. I think our starting lineup isn't very good. Our bench seems to do a lot better.
This. The only time you can take +/- at face value is when comparing two lineups that have played against each other often (using it in a playoff series would make the most sense).
I dont know how this is calculated but if it does acount for opponent scoring, parsons guards usually the other teams best perimeter player.
