+/- is so flawed

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Originally Posted by tholdren

Same family of thinking, philosophocally, as you just stated, they are trying to adjust plus minus. You wouldnt adjust anything that wasnt on similar philosphical planes. Trying to judge individual performance on a net value that takes 10 players minimum to contribute to is stupid. Which i think, after years of debate, you just confirmed

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... you just don't get it.

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Originally Posted by Chinook

BPM is actually a newer stat (like much newer than RAPM and about the same age as ESPN's RPM). It's not regular plus-minus, like what this thread is about.

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I didn't realize that. Thanks for the correction on what I posted.

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Originally Posted by Raven

... you just don't get it.

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Says the guy who claims plus minus tells who had an effect... lol dumb

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Originally Posted by lebomb

Your explanation is exactly what makes it stupid. Who even cares. Especially when Pau is on the floor and their midgets are in.

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But that's not any flaw in the stat, though. It's just a record

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Originally Posted by tholdren

Same family of thinking, philosophocally, as you just stated, they are trying to adjust plus minus. You wouldnt adjust anything that wasnt on similar philosphical planes. Trying to judge individual performance on a net value that takes 10 players minimum to contribute to is stupid. Which i think, after years of debate, you just confirmed

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No. They are very different. Plus-minus is an objective record of what happened during a game. The other stats are arguments about which players are best. They try to use the same simple format of plus-minus to make their point, but they aren't the same. I'd actually go so far as to say that of that list, only RAPM actually tries to be a statement on net scoring. It's actually very different from BPM and RPM numerically, but I lumped them together for convenience. Anyway, none of those stats are just tweaks to the general plus-minus format. They are rewrites of the whole formula that go far beyond the scope of the original metric. I haven't confirmed, but I don't think those stats really even look like general plus-minus when compared side by side.

As far as your last point, I have never really defended using plus-minus for an individual game. At best, it can just shed some light onto a guy's performance leading to runs from one side or the other. It's not ironclad. However, the great thing about stats is that they get stronger the more data that gets collected. That's why I said LMA's total plus-minus is actually where you'd expect it to be and is thusly more representative of his overall impact. A lot of things come out in the wash.

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Originally Posted by Chinook

No. They are very different. Plus-minus is an objective record of what happened during a game. The other stats are arguments about which players are best. They try to use the same simple format of plus-minus to make their point, but they aren't the same. I'd actually go so far as to say that of that list, only RAPM actually tries to be a statement on net scoring. It's actually very different from BPM and RPM numerically, but I lumped them together for convenience. Anyway, none of those stats are just tweaks to the general plus-minus format. They are rewrites of the whole formula that go far beyond the scope of the original metric. I haven't confirmed, but I don't think those stats really even look like general plus-minus when compared side by side.

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I copy and pasted below from the site that explains what the differences are between the two.

the name suggests, real plus-minus shares a family resemblance with the +/- stat in*the box score, which merely registers the net change in score (plus or minus) while each player is on the court.

RPM is inspired by the same underlying +/- logic: If a team outscores its opponents when a player is on the court, he's probably doing something to help his team, whether or not he's putting up big numbers

It's not a good single game metric to evaluate a particular player, but when used with other data, like starters v. starters, the impact of certain lineups, long-term analysis, I think it can be useful. Just like any piece of information it can become horribly skewed in the wrong hands.

But, yeah, a scrub who plays in garbage time on a particular night can look amazing in the +/-, vs. a guy who carried the load all night and breaks even because he's busting it against the other team's all-stars.

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Originally Posted by tholdren

I copy and pasted below from the site that explains what the differences are between the two.

the name suggests, real plus-minus shares a family resemblance with the +/- stat in*the box score, which merely registers the net change in score (plus or minus) while each player is on the court.

RPM is inspired by the same underlying +/- logic: If a team outscores its opponents when a player is on the court, he's probably doing something to help his team, whether or not he's putting up big numbers

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Plus-minus doesn't have "logic" though, any more than offensive rebounds do. That second sentence does about as good of a job at explaining the difference as anything I've read. The bolded part is exactly why the two metrics are philosophically incompatible.

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Originally Posted by Chinook

Plus-minus doesn't have "logic" though, any more than offensive rebounds do. That second sentence does about as good of a job at explaining the difference as anything I've read. The bolded part is exactly why the two metrics are philosophically incompatible.

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Totally disagree with the bold. Its a terrible assumption.

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Originally Posted by tholdren

Totally disagree with the bold. Its a terrible assumption.

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And you can if you want. I'm just saying that regular plus-minus doesn't make that assumption. It doesn't make any assumptions.

Lol the stat that proved Boban was our best player. And these “advanced” stats guys still use it, lol.

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Originally Posted by Chinook

And you can if you want. I'm just saying that regular plus-minus doesn't make that assumption. It doesn't make any assumptions.

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Lol dancing. Look you said the stats werent related. I showed you they are, from the creators nonetheless. You say the stats dont make assumptions, technically you are correct but you know very well that stats are not only given to identify a point in time but to predict, rank, and sort. Hence the media hype bullshit with unintelligent fans. Arguing the semantics is like arguing the stats themselves, its for lazy, unintelligent people who dont understand the game. Watch the game and its easy to see the stats negate the actual detail of play.

The one thing you cant dance around is that plus minus is not a stat that can determine individual performance. Which you argued at length was not the case several years ago

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Originally Posted by tholdren

Totally disagree with the bold. Its a terrible assumption.

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it's not an assumption, it's a fact.

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Originally Posted by tholdren

Lol dancing. Look you said the stats werent related. I showed you they are, from the creators nonetheless.

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I actually said they were different things packaged the same way. The quote from the "creators" said the same thing. RPM is a stat that's made to look like regular plus-minus. But it's completely different in pretty much every possible way. I have no problem saying that the quote is wrong in its interpretation of both stats.

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You say the stats dont make assumptions,

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No. I said regulars, general plus-minus doesn't make assumptions. I specifically said RPM and BPM DO make assumptions, which is why they are philosophically different from regular plus-minus.

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stats are not only given to identify a point in time but to predict, rank, and sort

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No. I'd go as far as to say no raw stats predict, rank or sort. Doing that comes from models, like RPM and its ilk. There are a ton of rules about the procedure and risk of creating models with data and the power of conclusions drawn from those. Again, the fundamental philosophical difference between RPM and plus-minus is that the former cares that there's a rhyme or reason to its results, while the latter doesn't.

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Arguing the semantics is like arguing the stats themselves, its for lazy, unintelligent people who dont understand the game. Watch the game and its easy to see the stats negate the actual detail of play.

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This isn't just a "semantic" argument. A person can't consistently misuse evidence and them accuse the evidence of being wrong. Again, no one seems to have this problem with the other raw stats like points, or turnovers. People understand those capture what they capture and aren't supposed to explain the "detail of play". But for plus-minus, people turn stupid, both for an against it.

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The one thing you cant dance around is that plus minus is not a stat that can determine individual performance

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NO stat can "determine" that. Arguing it can or bashing it because it can't are equally pointless. Stats are merely evidence for an argument, not the argument themselves. To that end, plus-minus CAN be used as evidence for individual value, and with a large enough sample size, it tracks reasonably well in that regard. Even when stats are backed up by large samples, it's not advisable to use them as end-all/be-alls in an argument. Keeping them in context is important.

For example, Matt Bonner's great plus-minus numbers are not an example of the stat being flawed. But they also aren't evidence for how good Bonner was compared to better players. Rather, they fit nicely in an argument of how stretch-bigs changed the NBA with Bonner being one of the the first role-player bigs who shot threes at a high level.

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Originally Posted by Raven

it's not an assumption, it's a fact.

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It's not a fact; it's a hypothesis, meaning it's pretty much an assumption. But depending on the sample size, it could be a really strong assumption.

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Originally Posted by Chinook

I actually said they were different things packaged the same way. The quote from the "creators" said the same thing. RPM is a stat that's made to look like regular plus-minus. But it's completely different in pretty much every possible way. I have no problem saying that the quote is wrong in its interpretation of both stats.



No. I said regulars, general plus-minus doesn't make assumptions. I specifically said RPM and BPM DO make assumptions, which is why they are philosophically different from regular plus-minus.



No. I'd go as far as to say no raw stats predict, rank or sort. Doing that comes from models, like RPM and its ilk. There are a ton of rules about the procedure and risk of creating models with data and the power of conclusions drawn from those. Again, the fundamental philosophical difference between RPM and plus-minus is that the former cares that there's a rhyme or reason to its results, while the latter doesn't.



This isn't just a "semantic" argument. A person can't consistently misuse evidence and them accuse the evidence of being wrong. Again, no one seems to have this problem with the other raw stats like points, or turnovers. People understand those capture what they capture and aren't supposed to explain the "detail of play". But for plus-minus, people turn stupid, both for an against it.



NO stat can "determine" that. Arguing it can or bashing it because it can't are equally pointless. Stats are merely evidence for an argument, not the argument themselves. To that end, plus-minus CAN be used as evidence for individual value, and with a large enough sample size, it tracks reasonably well in that regard. Even when stats are backed up by large samples, it's not advisable to use them as end-all/be-alls in an argument. Keeping them in context is important.

For example, Matt Bonner's great plus-minus numbers are not an example of the stat being flawed. But they also aren't evidence for how good Bonner was compared to better players. Rather, they fit nicely in an argument of how stretch-bigs changed the NBA with Bonner being one of the the first role-player bigs who shot threes at a high level.

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AMEN.

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Originally Posted by Chinook

It's not a fact; it's a hypothesis, meaning it's pretty much an assumption. But depending on the sample size, it could be a really strong assumption.

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i meant the quoted message, not the bold quoted in the msg. But yeah..

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Originally Posted by Raven

i meant the quoted message, not the bold quoted in the msg. But yeah..

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Lol u so dumb

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Originally Posted by Chinook

I actually said they were different things packaged the same way. The quote from the "creators" said the same thing. RPM is a stat that's made to look like regular plus-minus. But it's completely different in pretty much every possible way. I have no problem saying that the quote is wrong in its interpretation of both stats.



No. I said regulars, general plus-minus doesn't make assumptions. I specifically said RPM and BPM DO make assumptions, which is why they are philosophically different from regular plus-minus.



No. I'd go as far as to say no raw stats predict, rank or sort. Doing that comes from models, like RPM and its ilk. There are a ton of rules about the procedure and risk of creating models with data and the power of conclusions drawn from those. Again, the fundamental philosophical difference between RPM and plus-minus is that the former cares that there's a rhyme or reason to its results, while the latter doesn't.



This isn't just a "semantic" argument. A person can't consistently misuse evidence and them accuse the evidence of being wrong. Again, no one seems to have this problem with the other raw stats like points, or turnovers. People understand those capture what they capture and aren't supposed to explain the "detail of play". But for plus-minus, people turn stupid, both for an against it.



NO stat can "determine" that. Arguing it can or bashing it because it can't are equally pointless. Stats are merely evidence for an argument, not the argument themselves. To that end, plus-minus CAN be used as evidence for individual value, and with a large enough sample size, it tracks reasonably well in that regard. Even when stats are backed up by large samples, it's not advisable to use them as end-all/be-alls in an argument. Keeping them in context is important.

For example, Matt Bonner's great plus-minus numbers are not an example of the stat being flawed. But they also aren't evidence for how good Bonner was compared to better players. Rather, they fit nicely in an argument of how stretch-bigs changed the NBA with Bonner being one of the the first role-player bigs who shot threes at a high level.

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No it cannot be used in any sample size to determine individual worth.