Can someone explain +/-?

[RsxPiimp]

lebrun is having a damn good series, statistically, but why is he -21 and -22 in games 3 and 4?

[MeloHype]

Miami was outscored by 21 when he was on the court

[TDMVPDPOY]

must askin the king of +/- here...matt bonner

[Clipper Nation]

One-game plus/minus is a pretty useless stat for evaluating individual players, tbh.... it's also influenced by everyone else on the court, so it just serves to illustrate how terrible the rest of the team is playing even when LeBron's on the court....

[RsxPiimp]

Miami was outscored by 21 when he was on the court

ok, then why is wade only -9? when we all know, he's the biggest reason why the heat sucked ass especially last night?

[MeloHype]

ok, then why is wade only -9? when we all know, he's the biggest reason why the heat sucked ass especially last night?same reason why lebron was a -21

[jimbo]

ok, then why is wade only -9? when we all know, he's the biggest reason why the heat sucked ass especially last night?

1) Plus minus is better for looking at large sample sizes so fluke shots don't over/understate impact. Say Dwyane played perfect defense on Danny and he still landed a three in his face, he's now -3. If he played zero D on Danny and Danny missed the shot, he'd be 0. So it can lie in that aspect.

2) Dwyane's replacements are much worse than he is. Even with how bad he is, Ray Allen is worse. So if Lebron is playing minutes without Wade and Ray Allen is getting abused, Lebron's +/- is gonna suffer.

3) Lebron played more minutes than Wade. Usually in a blowout your workhorse is still gonna have bad plus minus numbers. It's uncommon that that doesn't happen. (Although Bosh was only -15 compared to Lebron's -22 and he played a minute more. But that can be explained with the first two points)

[jARS mEsH sEt]

Because it's the shittiest stat in existence. Every single teammate is a confounding variable with +/- which is why +/- only makes sense for 5 man groups and not individual players, and even then it's not that great of a stat.

[RsxPiimp]

1) Plus minus is better for looking at large sample sizes so fluke shots don't over/understate impact. Say Dwyane played perfect defense on Danny and he still landed a three in his face, he's now -3. If he played zero D on Danny and Danny missed the shot, he'd be 0. So it can lie in that aspect.

2) Dwyane's replacements are much worse than he is. Even with how bad he is, Ray Allen is worse. So if Lebron is playing minutes without Wade and Ray Allen is getting abused, Lebron's +/- is gonna suffer.

3) Lebron played more minutes than Wade. Usually in a blowout your workhorse is still gonna have bad plus minus numbers. It's uncommon that that doesn't happen. (Although Bosh was only -15 compared to Lebron's -22 and he played a minute more. But that can be explained with the first two points)
Ahh. good stuff. thanks.

[jARS mEsH sEt]

1) Plus minus is better for looking at large sample sizes so fluke shots don't over/understate impact. Say Dwyane played perfect defense on Danny and he still landed a three in his face, he's now -3. If he played zero D on Danny and Danny missed the shot, he'd be 0. So it can lie in that aspect.

2) Dwyane's replacements are much worse than he is. Even with how bad he is, Ray Allen is worse. So if Lebron is playing minutes without Wade and Ray Allen is getting abused, Lebron's +/- is gonna suffer.

3) Lebron played more minutes than Wade. Usually in a blowout your workhorse is still gonna have bad plus minus numbers. It's uncommon that that doesn't happen. (Although Bosh was only -15 compared to Lebron's -22 and he played a minute more. But that can be explained with the first two points)

Wade plays good defense but Danny Green sinks a well contested 3. Now every Heat player is a -3, not just Wade. Therein lies the problem with +/-. Who's fault is that? Nobody. Wade is the one doing all the work. Wade is the one playing good defense on Green, and Green just hits a better shot. Wade should be rewarded in the box score for his good defense, and his teammates (barring necessary rotations) shouldn't be rewarded or penalized.

[JamStone]

+/- has its uses. Probably a better barometer on how a team plays collectively, so it's better to look at player combination +/- say for 3 or 4 or 5 player combinations. Also better if used in a comparative analysis. Suppose you look at 4 player combinations like LeBron-Wade-Bosh-Chalmers versus LeBron-Wade-Bosh-Cole. If either 4 player combination has a significantly better +/- in similar minutes, you can surmise between Chalmers and Cole who plays better with the other three players. Note, it doesn't necessarily determine who the better player is between the two, just gives a better indication who in general plays better with the other three.

+/- has been a pretty standard stat in hockey for a long time, where there is far less scoring, so the impact of scoring on +/- is obviously greater. There is so much scoring in basketball, including in dead ball situations for free throws that +/- becomes much less significant a barometer for individual evaluation.

[Chinook]

Plus-minus is a fine stat when looked at over the course of a season. Despite what people say, it doesn't lie. But people often draw the wrong conclusions from it, but that's not the stat's fault.

Like Bonner was the Spurs' plus-minus king for years, and a lot of Spurs fans use that to undercut the stat's usefulness. However, it showed how important having a stretch-four is to helping an offense function, and now it's kind of been a trend to play a shooting big at PF. I'm not going to say that Miami is playing Lewis at the four (or Houston Jones or OKC and LAC wanting their PFs to have corner-threes) directly because of Bonner, but it's not a coincidence that the league is moving in the direction that Matt's plus-minus indicates.