In general, I despise people who watch boxscores and argue points without watching the game itself. Which is what many "stat-junkies" rely on.
+/- and EFF are my two biggest pet peeves. Neither tell anywhere close to the entire story. For example Oden sets a monster pick and Outlaw jacks up a contested shot and misses. The rebound comes long and the other team scores on a layup. Greg -2 Frye sets a horrible pick, but Bayless drives to the basket and scores. Frye +2
I gather you are referring to the argument that Milkshake and I have been having about Aldridge. I fully agree that +/- and other composite measures do not tell the whole story. I only brought out +/- because there is some measure of correlation between it and a player's defensive contributions, I never meant to imply that it's by any means definitive (if that's what anybody got from my post(s)).
No statistic tells the whole story. But a bad process leading to a good outcome (or good process leading to a bad outcome), otherwise known as good and bad luck, isn't really a good argument against a statistic unless you have reasoning for why the statistic in question is really measuring luck-based outcomes in general. +/- on a per-game level isn't very useful, and completely meaningless on a per-play level, for exactly that reason. A good effort can lead to a bad result and a bad effort can lead to a good result. Luck can completely overwhelm skill on any given play, and can still greatly skew the effect of skill for a single game. For a season, it becomes more reliable in judging impact, because good and bad luck tends to even out over a larger sample size. That said, unadjusted +/- has other major problems, like not accounting for the fact that second-stringers often play with worse teammates. If you're Tim Duncan's backup, obviously your +/- will suck...not necessarily because you suck, but because your team is much worse with you on the floor instead of Duncan. It's a statistic with an interesting conceptual basis (it can account for "intangibles" and defense because it only cares about your effect on the score...not specific production numbers), but it has significant flaws. There are people out there that try to adjust +/- for who is on the court at the time.
I fully understand. My specialty is GIS, spatial analysis and spatial statistics, so I always try to tread a bit lightly when pointing to stats as "proof" of anything.
I believe the entire point is to evaluate the overall efficiency of the team rather than the individual player. Sorta takes the "Soap Opera" out of it (read: emotion). Pretty funny that it gets looked at like it does. It seems some like to disregard it for what it isn't.
Every player has a +/- too though. It's a garbage statistic. It's right in fromt of EFF. Portland has the highest EFF in the league, but is last in pace and fast break points. Average at best in most other offensive categories. We have a very, very good player that saves us most games.
Statistics, like the bible, can be used to support any arguement. Even at their best they are merely recorded history, and no guarantee of the future. Better to just agree with me on everything to be safe.
I think you should have to of had sex with an actual living breathing woman before you can post on here! All you video game playin' computer geeks living in your mom's basement wouldn't be allowed on here anymore! The only one's allowed would be me and 'Rizz!
Interestingly, if you're going to have a slow pace, you better have a high EFF or you're going to lose a lot of games. Seems to show what the meaning of those two stats you mentioned are. As for +/-, it is what it is. One can look at one play in isolation and miss what +/- is all about. Brandon Roy takes the opponents' best defender out of the mix defending the other 4 players. Whether Roy scores a single point, he's helping the team on the + side. If he's contributing to stops at the other end, he's helping the team on the - side. It is what it is. It doesn't at all consider that a player is playing with 2nd stringers or against 2nd stringers. So you don't rely on any one statistic as the be-all-end-all. It's just one of many tools to help develop a record of what the players do on the court.
I'd like a stat-finder guru to help me with this: I keep seeing that "Blazers lead league in EFF" or "We're leading league in rebounding" or something. I'd really like to see a breakdown of what happens in wins>15pts, games within 15 pts, and losses>15pts. Observations are that, when we're losing, we don't have the best EFF (I know that's a "duh" statement). My observations tend to have me think that we make our statistical hay in our blowouts, so it skews the "averageness" of the vast majority of our games. I'd like to see if the stats bear that out.
I'm not a stat geek, but the guys on tv are always talking about elias sports bureau. Maybe it breaks it down there?
I always thought Elias was a "premium" (read: Pay for it) place that people like ESPN and teams buy into. I heard that Spoelstra gets an 80-page stat report after each game. I can't find a site that gives stuff in that detail. But I'll check again. Thanks.
