and Juwan Howard was +12. Which proves the +- is a worthless stat. But Steve is the record holder for most assists in 1 quarter, so obviously he has that going for him.
Yes it is really worthless. Because was Juwan the best player on the court when he played? Nope. But he had the highest +- of the team.
I don't think it makes him the best player on the court at all. It just measures that he contributed a lot when he was in. Whatever lineup he was with that went +12 should have played a lot more, be it with Blake and/or Bayless at the same time as him, or not. Make sense?
But that's it. How can a professional team look so friggin bad at the basics? I've seen HS teams that execute better and run the break better. It's like they don't practice 3-on1, 4-on2 breaks at all. You can't tell me these guys who grew up playing the game can't run. Yet, it seems like these coaches have a talent for making young players forget what they learnt (and enjoy) of BBall prior to joining the Blazers. The Coaches have to be held responsible, and should be shown the door.
I don't want to undermine anyone arguing with Julius, but +/- doesn't track casuation at all. Some +/- stats, especially with guys who are only in a few minutes, are total bunk, because they are heavily influenced by the flow of the game around them. HOWEVER, 3 defensive rebounds does say that he prevented 3 offensive rebounds. Given the Knicks shot 41%, he prevented 2-3 points directly. Not bad. You could give him a personal +3. The 3-guard rotation had the best "big time" +/-, and were all similar. This leads me to believe that the 3-guard lineup has some merit still.
It speaks to chemistry. Your bigs put up nice stats (Aldridge 19 pts, 13 rebounds / Joel 8 boards), but didn't match up well with the Knicks who played small. Knicks played 4 guards a total of about 110 minutes.
I actually think it was because he was lucky enough to only play during the same time when Bayless led a scoring charge...it had very little to do with his own play and a lot more to do that he was substituted in when Bayless took over...
What I don't get is how Bayless "took over" and "led a scoring charge" but ended up with such a negative +/-.
I think 2 reasons (and I'm going off memory) He was in during the 2nd quarter run the Knicks couldn't miss. And, just before he left in the 4th quarter the Knicks kicked the lead from 9 to 15 on a 2 straight 3's (one 3 point FG, then the Bayless turnover, and one 2 point + foul)
It's worthless over one game, yes. Most statisticians who study basketball say that +/- needs at least about three seasons worth of data to filter out enough noise for useful conclusions to be drawn from it. And it's obvious why. Take a single play on both offense and defense. Player A penetrates, draws the defense and creates an open, point-blank layup for a teammate. That teammate blows the wide open layup. The defense rebounds and on the opposing team's possession, another teammate gives up an easy jumper that goes in. A different play, offense and defense: Player B gets the ball, swings it around the perimeter to a teammate who knocks down a tough jumper over two defenders. The other team brings the ball down the court on their possession. Player B gets cleanly beaten off the dribble, but a teammate comes from the weak side and swats the driving layup attempt. Player A is -2, Player B is +2, even though Player A pretty clearly played better. The reason the +/- results don't match what actually happened is basically a matter of luck (in terms of Players A and B) in what they got from their teammates. It takes a lot of data for luck and other noise (factors that aren't related to an individual's performance) to be filtered out enough to get real results. A single play +/- is obviously meaningless. So is a single game's. Even one season can yield pretty misleading results. Once you have multiple seasons, the data starts to be more useful.
We're not talking about 1 play. It's enough plays for the guy to go -10 while scoring 14 points in 17 minutes. What you can say is that whatever combination of 5 guys including him in it gave up at least 24 points. That's about 20 possessions. -10 in 20 possessions is not very good. I think what single game +/- tells you is about that one game, not about the player.
It's not very good. It just says nothing about the player, which is the point. Why are scores over small portions of the game particularly illuminating? I'd say a better description of the game comes from the final score and the various team stats, like rebounding, scoring efficiency, turnovers, etc.
It isn't the point, about the player. The point is about chemistry. If you put ZBo out there, he's supposedly going to hurt the team in spite of impressive stats. SAR had a reputation of putting up good stats on teams that couldn't win - that speaks to chemistry. I don't think +/- within a game tells the whole story though. A guy could be + by playing with a strong unit against the opponents' second unit. On the other hand, having + in that situation means the unit he played on did their job.
Where did this number come from? I have no clue how a guy who played nearly all of the game and was on the floor during all the parts where Portland got stomped could possibly have a -2 for the game. It is absurd and has to be a misprint.
LOL Um, OK. Blake played a solid game. The over-the-top bitching about him is no surprise, though. Every year needs a scapegoat with you people...
