Stop Looking At the Plus/Minus Stats to Guage Player Effectiveness

[Remote]

People on this site constantly create these strawmen arguments where they act like 1 particular statistic was meant to encapsulate a player's entire value.

There are no bad stats. All these things do is measure what happens on the playing field. It's up to you to determine/combine the ones that you think give you the most relevant information for what you're trying to evaluate.
Trashing plus/minus or rebounds or points or win shares or vorp or whatever is just ignorance.

This is true of analytics in every sport.

 

[Professor Emeritus]

So Greek Freak had the largest negative (-17) in the entire game against Cleveland. So does that mean it’s his fault the Bucks lost? Analatyic nerds have ruined basketball. GMs actually look at these stats to determine whether they’ll sign a player or not. Players will be stigmatized as "not playing winning basketball" when everyone else in the lineup with them is trash.

+/- is NOT analytics.

And plain +/- isn't something analytic nerds look at. +/- is just counting points, regular people put it in the box score long before analytic nerds came around.

Yet another thread perpetuating confused people.

 

[BigMoneyGrip]

Eyes don’t lie

 

[Mentch15]

Plus / minus is literally the most annoying stat in basketball next to PER. I automatically ignore any arguments attempting to compare different player's PER or +/- to show that theyre the better player, and I absolutely hate people who dikk ride those stats in an attempt to make themselves look knowledgeable

 

[Po pimp]

Taking 1 Stat from 1 game and forming an opinion is not analytics

This thread is a straw man

So if a player scored 40 points on 60% shooting and went perfect from the line, we can say they had a great scoring game, but their plus/minus in that same game is irrelevant?

 

[Rekkapryde]

Plus/Minus for a LINEUP is better than an individual.

 

[1thouwow]

Cac stats

 

[CrimsonTider]

So if a player scored 40 points on 60% shooting and went perfect from the line, we can say they had a great scoring game, but their plus/minus in that same game is irrelevant?

 

[DonKnock]

So Greek Freak had the largest negative (-17) in the entire game against Cleveland. So does that mean it’s his fault the Bucks lost? Analatyic nerds have ruined basketball. GMs actually look at these stats to determine whether they’ll sign a player or not. Players will be stigmatized as "not playing winning basketball" when everyone else in the lineup with them is trash.

Do you not like math?

Or are you scared of change?

 

[Gil Scott-Heroin]

Plus/Minus for a LINEUP is better than an individual.

Yes, yes, and more yes. Plus/minus should ONLY be used for lineups over a generous sample size - not an individual.

 

[Gil Scott-Heroin]

you have to take into context stars vs bench/role players obviously but it says alot when your star player(s) has the worst impact on the game/team even when getting numbers.

Plus/minus doesn't measure impact. And stop correlating box score numbers with impact too. This is the biggest issue when valuing basketball, too many folk have been brainwashed by an archaic # system that blinds them from what has true impact in the game.

 

[Po pimp]

Do you not like math?

Or are you scared of change?

What does math have to do with anything? You act as if plus/minus is some complicated formula.

 

[DonKnock]

What does math have to do with anything? You act as if plus/minus is some complicated formula.

"Analatyic nerds have ruined basketball. GMs actually look at these stats to determine whether they’ll sign a player or not."

 

[hayesc0]

Must be a kobe stan. Analytics isnt analyzing a single game its a trend over a long period of time to form a opinion of a player so this is a trash thread.

 

[Po pimp]

Lonzo Ball is shooting 2/12, has 4pts, 3 boards and 4 assists, yet has a plus 20....highest in the game.