I wonder about how the NBA tracks some stats. For instance, let's look at the +/- stats from tonight's Rockets vs. Hornets game. So Hayes supposedly had -15 and Lowry +10 - while Hayes played 41 and Lowry 44 minutes. How is this even possible? Weren't they on the court together most of the time? I am not doubting that +/- is useful to some extent, but I am wondering whether these stats always get recorded correctly. How do they record +/-?
Jordan Hill is +13, that must mean he played extremely well!!!!!!!!! like I said before, +/- is USELESS.
It is mostly useless for one game, but it definitely isn't useless with a large sample size. Hill is -12.8 on the season, good for last on the team. That sound about right?
Using +/- to gauge any one players' performance in a game is an extreme misuse of the stat. The true use of +/- is measuring how well different combinations of players play together. I personally don't think that individual +/- should ever be mentioned when talking about a player's performance.
There's no trick to recording +/-. Its right there in the play-by-play. Here's the gameflow: http://popcornmachine.net/cgi-bin/gameflow.cgi?date=20110227&game=HOUNOR Notice that Chuck missed only a couple minutes in the second half, and the Rockets made an 11-0 run in that span. Is it because Jordan Hill played so much better? Probably not -- look a little further down on the stat sheet, and you'll find that Chris Paul happened to be sitting out at the same time. In fact, Chuck's minutes happened to coincide mostly with when Chris Paul was on the floor and exactly with when David West was on the floor. Paul was +10, West was +15, and Hayes was -15. I think that explains it.
+/- is the most useless piece of garbage statistic, it's utter ******* sham that it's included with all the other relevant statistics. I mean cmon, they should put AFG% or TS% in there
That would be a waste of space. TS%/AFG% can be easily calculated from the numbers already provided. That wouldn't be adding any new information to the boxscore. +/- does. You're free to ignore it.
I'm free to ignore a completely inaccurate statistic, true true. If a stat sucks, well geez guys, just ignore it!
Just because you don't like the stat, does not mean that it is inaccurate. It's a perfectly fine stat to include in the box score. As others have pointed out, it does give you some idea of individual impact on the game when averaged over a large number of games.
I think +/- is very useful for deteremining lineups, especially during the playoffs. If you can figure out which lineup has the best +/- against a certain team, then that's the one you should probably play. +/- is finnicky, because playing with a great setup man (e.g. Chris Paul) can make players seem better than they really are and give them inflated plus/minus.
How can a statistic be completely inaccurate, unless its made up or a lie? The purpose of a boxscore is to describe what happened during the game, not simply to answer the question "How well did player X play." People should think of the +/- column as team statistics -- describing how well the team did when a particular player was on the floor. That's all +/- really is. And it may or may not reflect the contributions of an individual player, which people should always keep in mind. But if established coaches like Pat Rily and George Karl are tracking +/- for decades, I would not call it useless, garbage information.
There is no such thing as an inaccurate statistic, because every statistic is the result of an equation with the numbers plugged in. There can be extremely misleading statistics, and there can be statistics that aren't very useful, but saying they are inaccurate is a fallacy. Every statistic shows exactly what it is meant to show. The team did do worse in this game with chuck on the floor. Is it because Chuck was bad? Not at all, it's because the other team was better. +/- shows exactly what it was made to show, it's just misleading if you don't understand how the statistic is derived.
This. +/- isn't the killer stat that totally defines a player's effectiveness, but it's one tool in the shed that helps. Individual game +/- can be a very misleading indicator. Sometimes you can watch a game, observe a guy playing like garbage and his +/- will reflect that. Other times the team will succeed in spite of a player (and vice versa). Against the Hornets last night, the +/- for Chuck Hayes and Jordan Hill couldn't be more misleading. Wow!
This is very useful. I guess if I was a coach, I would look at things that stand out and then maybe re-watch tape. I would probably look at those two short stretches with Chuck on the floor when we went -17 and at that stretch when we went +11 or what it was without him. Then I would try to determine if Chuck really had anything to do with it. I'd use it as an additional tool only.
Yes, I think that's the right way to use it. Here's what Spoelstra (who is a very bright guy) thinks of +/-: http://www.nba.com/2011/news/features/john_schuhmann/01/22/spoelstra-qa/ [rquoter] NBA.com: Do players understand plus-minus? E.S.: I think now they do, because it's much more prevalent than it was a few years ago. You see it on everybody's website. Journalists now talk about it more. You can argue all you want about this or that, but at the end of the day, the most important statistic is the result on the scoreboard when you're on the floor. I think that resonates with players, so we challenge our guys all the time. Make your minutes a positive. Whatever minutes you're out there, don't let the score go the other way. After each game, I have a big printout, about 30 pages, of different statistics. I don't look through all the pages, but there are some that I immediately look at. I'll always look at the plus-minus of individual players to start, but I think that can be deceptive. From there, you have to look at the combinations. NBA.com: Plus-minus should never be dismissed, but it always has to be taken in context. E.S.: Absolutely. So I never look at just the player. I look at different combinations and all different layers. I probably learned that from Pat and Stan more than anything. You take all the data and you'll gain a lot more information than you had before. But ultimately, the most important thing it will do is get you to ask more questions and seek different answers. So I think that's sparked more creativity with our staff, to not just be complacent with the status quo, but to search for other things that might be better. And numbers have been a big part of that thinking process for us. [/rquoter]
