http://82games.com/0708/0708HOUP.HTM Looks like "Player Pair" stats are up for this season (for last season, click here). It allows you to see an individual player's stats when they are on the court with another player, as well as other stuff like +/- and "W-L" (or games when team outscored the opponent with the pair on the court versus games when the team was outscored by the opponent). Hopefully, eventually someone extends this to show stats when a player is on the court with any combination of 4 other players. First thing I looked up was how T-Mac plays with Rafer compared to Mike James. To my surprise, he actually has shot significantly better this season with James on the court (49.5 FG% compared to 43.5 FG%). Even the turnovers have been a little less. However, the +/- is significantly worse. Rockets are -11.4 with T-Mac/Mike and +6.0 with T-Mac/Rafer.
That's probably because when T-Mac and Mike are on the court, they're the only two players actually shooting the ball. Oh, and neither of them plays defense.
I'm sure the Rockets have every conceivable bit data one can imagine charted and stored somewhere. The challenge is drawing sensible and meaningful conclusions from it. I don't think there's a magic number he's devised which he thinks tells him who the best players are. It's probably just a lot of specific things that would be meaningful to a coaching staff like which combinations play well together and in what scenarios or what which plays are most effective in a given situation. Of course, they'll also know things like how efficient players are on particular plays and at specific locations on the court (all teams track that to some extent, I imagine).
Not an expert on the numbers but it seems Scola's +/- is better than I thought it'd be. Woulda figured Chuck had the big advantage there... Interesting that Francis' best field goal %'s by FAR is when he's paired with Rafer or James. To me it shows that combo guard or 2 guard is the best spot for him.
If you look at +/- when paired with Yao, then Chuck does have somewhat of an advantage (he also benefits from playing a greater proportion of those minutes with T-Mac as well). Scola-Yao are a -2.3. Actually, Scola's +/- is positive largely due to his minutes when paired with Chuck. The Chuck-Scola front court is a little more mobile defensively than Chuck-Yao, and that seems to have made up for the lack of interior size. Steve has always struggled with the PG position. When he's playing point, I think he's playing to not make mistakes, instead of playing to win.
Scola has had an excellent +/- for a while now. He is doing extremely well as a backup center even though he gets into foul trouble sometimes, and I just wish they'd run more offensive plays for him.
Scola has most of his minutes against back-ups on the other team. He's doing good, but he's also playing against inferior competition.
/\ /\ Agree on all above statements. Figured with Scola still adjusting looking lost on D and his hatchet job with fouls he'd give up as much if not more than he contributes no matter who he's paired with. Good to see thats not always the case. Always physical reasons to discredit ol' Chuck, but...lol he keeps on making a case for himself doesn't he. By himself he isn't much. But it seems figuring him as a "tandem" piece along with the center, he helps make the frontcourt OPERATE to the best of its abilities.
