"Real" Plus/Minus Stat

Discussion in 'Portland Trail Blazers' started by Hey, Apr 7, 2014.

  1. Hey

    Hey Active Member

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    New stat from ESPN, adding up Offensive +/- with Defensive +/-. Stats are stats, so take it for what it's worth.

    Explanation here

    Player rankings here

    Can't sort by team, but here's a quick low-down:

    Lillard is 13th best PG with a score of +2.73. He's the third best offensive PG at +4.62 behind only Curry and Paul. But his defense, as you would expect, is abysmal at -1.89.

    LMA ranks 9th best PF at +4.91. Surprisingly, his defense ranks better than his offense.

    Batum and Matthews are both terrible on defense and their offensive rating isn't anything to boast about either. I guess we can put to rest the fantasy that we have "great wing defenders." Maybe when they want to be, but not very consistent. We already knew this, but it's interesting to see nonetheless. Remember when Batum said he was the best SF in the West outside of Durant? Well he's ranked 27th out of all SF's.

    Lopez is 12th best Center. Best defender on our team at +3.22.
     
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  2. Eastoff

    Eastoff But it was a beginning.

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    Cool idea, thanks for sharing it!
     
  3. Strenuus

    Strenuus Global Moderator Staff Member Global Moderator

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    Good find. I'll have to dig through it some. Repped!
     
  4. Strenuus

    Strenuus Global Moderator Staff Member Global Moderator

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    As far as I can tell, of the top 100 players on the list, Damian is the worst of them defensive wise. The next closest is Ryan Anderson, but that doesn't seem fair given he's only played 22 games.
     
  5. Strenuus

    Strenuus Global Moderator Staff Member Global Moderator

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    To put it even moreso, Damian is 367th in DRPM... Anthony Morrow is ahead of him, Tristan Thompson as well. Yikes.

    Robin Lopez is 28th in that category. LA 35th.
     
  6. Prue

    Prue Member

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    Crazy stats...to think Wes and Nic don't rank that well...I know we value them as pair of our top defenders so I got to imagine a lot of the 'non-quantitative' stuff is our benefit with them
     
  7. riverman

    riverman Writing Team

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    I think it should be noted that Nic guards the best scorers in the NBA as LeBron, Durant, sometimes Love and even Chris Paul. Dame often doesn't guard elite pt guards but Nico usually gets the toughest assignments. Can they improve? Sure, but stats don't cover those intangibles
     
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  8. Wizard Mentor

    Wizard Mentor Wizard Mentor

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    A couple of comments, here:

    • In general, I am a fan of advanced stats. I scoff at PPG and people (such as announcers) who try to make a point using that.
    • It's unclear whether "Real" +/- takes into consideration who is on the court at the same time as you are. In particular, Lillard plays a bunch of time with bench players which is why his +/- (NetRtG) is lower than some of the others on the team.
    • Matthews and Batum's NetRtG is +8 and +6, respectively. If there's a way in which those numbers are somehow screwed up in a way that makes them look bad, then I'm skeptical.
    • While I like Nick Collison, he is not the 6th best player in the league or even among the better players in the league.
    • I think "Real" +/- is an interesting stat, but like PER, it does a poor job of being an appropriate metric for overall player quality.
     
  9. jlprk

    jlprk The ESPN mod is insane.

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    That's the gist of the Explanation. Read it for the answer.
     
  10. blue9

    blue9 Well-Known Member

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    I read the explanation, and it's not clear how they make a measurement that accounts for 5 (or, actually, 10) players in aggregate and apply it to an individual. I've always felt that +/- was a pretty crap stat (along with PER) because it has more to do with the other players on the floor than it does for the individual who's being ranked. But if they actually did something to account for that, then it becomes more useful. How useful? Who knows - that depends on what they did to make it measure the individual rather than the group of players on the floor during the individual's minutes played.
     
  11. Blazer4ever

    Blazer4ever Finding a Way BANNED

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    I wonder what it means that Nico with his defensive talent has a negative rating. Mathewss I never thought was a great defender. Also, Lamarcus' defensive rating is as surprisingly high as Batum's is low.
     
  12. Blazer4ever

    Blazer4ever Finding a Way BANNED

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    Also interesting that Jeff Ayres and Nate Wolters have exactly 0 total rating as their offensive and negative defensive rating are exactly equal. They are ranked 155, 156 out of 435 players
     
  13. Mediocre Man

    Mediocre Man Mr. SportsTwo

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    Some of we, not all of we. Some of we have been saying for years that Nic is a poor defender
     
  14. blue9

    blue9 Well-Known Member

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    My guess is that it means Nic plays with the bench players more than LMA does.
     
  15. riverman

    riverman Writing Team

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    Both Nic and Wes play a lot with the B squad. It's a big factor in the +/- stat line
     
  16. Blazer4ever

    Blazer4ever Finding a Way BANNED

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    I think maybe sometimes, other players don't play as hard on defense with Nic on the floor. Maybe without him they play more as a team defensively.
     
  17. TripTango

    TripTango Quick First Step

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    They are running a "ridge regression" on every player for every possession, implicitly taking into account teammates on the floor as well as opposing players. In theory, with enough data this would allow the model to separate the performances of really good players from those of their teammates who just happen to often be on the floor with them at the same time. Like with any statistic it should be taken with a grain of salt, but at the very least it's making an attempt to separate player performance from teammate performance, which is more than can be said for certain other popular advanced stats.

    The thing is, none of the above is new -- it's been done already with adjusted plus-minus (APM) and regularized adjusted plus-minus (RAPM). The article mentions improvements to these stats, such as "the use of Bayesian priors, aging curves, score of the game and extensive out-of-sample testing", but all of that is just statistical hand-waving without more specific details.
     
  18. rasheedfan2005

    rasheedfan2005 Well-Known Member

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    Fuck stats

    Go with the pop line of thinking, play hard and know your role = wins
     
  19. riverman

    riverman Writing Team

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    Well said
     
  20. TripTango

    TripTango Quick First Step

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    I have no idea what "play hard" has to do with NBA player evaluation. My 4-year old plays hard. He also knows his role, as long as he's had his nap. Wins? :shrug:
     

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