Steve Blake vs. Bayless as of late...

[Denny Crane]

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 +/-.

 

[Kaydow]

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)

 

[Minstrel]

Is it really worthless?

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.

 

[crowTrobot]

What I don't get is how Bayless "took over" and "led a scoring charge" but ended up with such a negative +/-.

he was -17 in the first half, +7 in the second.

 

[Denny Crane]

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.

 

[Minstrel]

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.

It's not very good. It just says nothing about the player, which is the point.

I think what single game +/- tells you is about that one game, not about the player.

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.

 

[Denny Crane]

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.

 

[LittleAlex]

-2 (led the team).

Just sayin'

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.

 

[PapaG]

Absolutely meaningless. We watched the game.

Bayless was the only only one who cared.

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...

 

[PapaG]

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.

When the facts don't fit an opinion, question the facts!

 

[maxiep]

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.

Any box score on ESPN or Yahoo! will have the +/- figure. You may not like it, but it's an actual statistic.

 

[hasoos]

You want facts? The facts are that two of our starters (Blake and Webster) are not in the top 30 of their position when there are only 30 teams in the league. Both are being outperformed by every other starting player at their position in the league, plus several bench players and rookies. Blake is currently behind 6 rookies in point guard performance.

The facts also are that the +/- results highly depend on which team members you are in the game with during your stretch of the game. Look at the turnvovers Miller had. Look at the turnovers Roy had. Look at the turnovers Joel had. Then look at Bayless. He had one turnover and it was near the end of the game, right before he got jerked out of the game by Dean. I hardly put the 20+ points we went down on this game on him. In fact, by the time he left, we were only down single digits and a huge part of it was because of him.

http://www.cbssports.com/nba/playerrankings

Now if you consider the fact that we already have Joel in the starting lineup and he is basically a zero for offensive production, we cannot afford to have Blake and Webster in the starting lineup. That is basically 0 production out of 3 starters at that point.

 

[hasoos]

Now that last nights stats are in the books, Bayless is now shooting .540 from the field. Do most of you understand that at that efficiency, I really wouldn't give a shit if he took 50 shots a night?

 

[blue32]

You want facts? The facts are that two of our starters (Blake and Webster) are not in the top 30 of their position when there are only 30 teams in the league. Both are being outperformed by every other starting player at their position in the league, plus several bench players and rookies. Blake is currently behind 6 rookies in point guard performance.

The facts also are that the +/- results highly depend on which team members you are in the game with during your stretch of the game. Look at the turnvovers Miller had. Look at the turnovers Roy had. Look at the turnovers Joel had. Then look at Bayless. He had one turnover and it was near the end of the game, right before he got jerked out of the game by Dean. I hardly put the 20+ points we went down on this game on him. In fact, by the time he left, we were only down single digits and a huge part of it was because of him.

http://www.cbssports.com/nba/playerrankings

Now if you consider the fact that we already have Joel in the starting lineup and he is basically a zero for offensive production, we cannot afford to have Blake and Webster in the starting lineup. That is basically 0 production out of 3 starters at that point.

God damn, Amen....

PLEASE change the lineup (nate if your reading!!!)

 

[SpanishFly]

Now that last nights stats are in the books, Bayless is now shooting .540 from the field. Do most of you understand that at that efficiency, I really wouldn't give a shit if he took 50 shots a night?

Some here are blinded by I don't know what amigo, but Bayless deserves a shitload more minutes and they should come out of Blake's minutes.

 

[LittleAlex]

Any box score on ESPN or Yahoo! will have the +/- figure. You may not like it, but it's an actual statistic.

There are times when things in a box score get misprinted.


I am thinking this is one of those times.

 

[maxiep]

There are times when things in a box score get misprinted.


I am thinking this is one of those times.

Okay. We'll agree to disagree.

 

[Blazer_Hippie]

There are times when things in a box score get misprinted.


I am thinking this is one of those times.

Add up the +/- for all Blazers and divide that total by 5 and you should get the final score differential:

total Blazer player +/- -45
/ by 5 players
= final score differential -9

84-93 = -9

If Blake's is messed up so is someone else's, that's an unlikely misprint...BRoy is -3...looks to me like Blake's is correct.

 

[Minstrel]

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.

So you are saying that it's about the player, i.e. that +/- will help quantify the player's value on the court when you consider "chemistry." That may or may not be true, but it certainly isn't true in a single game and, statisticians say, isn't likely to be true even with a single season of data.

All +/- for a single game says is that, for whatever reason, a player was on the floor when his team out-scored the other team by X or was outscored by the other team by X. That reason could be chemistry, good/bad luck, the quality of the players he happened to be up against during his time on the floor, small sample size, etc. The results are too noisy to tell us anything we can use. It's purely descriptive, not prescriptive.

 

[PapaG]

So you are saying that it's about the player, i.e. that +/- will help quantify the player's value on the court when you consider "chemistry." That may or may not be true, but it certainly isn't true in a single game and, statisticians say, isn't likely to be true even with a single season of data.

All +/- for a single game says is that, for whatever reason, a player was on the floor when his team out-scored the other team by X or was outscored by the other team by X. That reason could be chemistry, good/bad luck, the quality of the players he happened to be up against during his time on the floor, small sample size, etc. The results are too noisy to tell us anything we can use. It's purely descriptive, not prescriptive.

So what does the fact that Andre Miller and Steve Blake are 1 and 2 on the team in +/- for the season mean?

 

[LittleAlex]

Add up the +/- for all Blazers and divide that total by 5 and you should get the final score differential:

total Blazer player +/- -45
/ by 5 players
= final score differential -9

84-93 = -9

If Blake's is messed up so is someone else's, that's an unlikely misprint...BRoy is -3...looks to me like Blake's is correct.

Then the calculation worked and the number is correct.

Please refer to Minstrel's post as it exactly mirrors my thoughts on the subject.

 

[PapaG]

Then the calculation worked and the number is correct.

Please refer to Minstrel's post as it exactly mirrors my thoughts on the subject.

If the facts don't change the theory, change the theory.

An interesting flip on an old debate technique.

 

[hasoos]

So what does the fact that Andre Miller and Steve Blake are 1 and 2 on the team in +/- for the season mean?

It says nothing. Just because they are #1 and #2 doesn't mean it couldn't have been better than it was.

 

[PapaG]

It says nothing. Just because they are #1 and #2 doesn't mean it couldn't have been better than it was.

Well, that settles it.

 

[Minstrel]

So what does the fact that Andre Miller and Steve Blake are 1 and 2 on the team in +/- for the season mean?

To me, it means nothing, as per my thoughts in the post you quoted. If a full season of +/- is still too noisy to be of much use, why would a fragment of a season be useful?

What do you think it means?

 

[PapaG]

To me, it means nothing, as per my thoughts in the post you quoted. If a full season of +/- is still too noisy to be of much use, why would a fragment of a season be useful?

What do you think it means?

It means that the team outscores the opponents most with Miller on the court, and second-most when Blake is on the court. The object of the game is to score more points than the opponent, at least that's what I was taught when I played competitively.

According to 82games.com, the best line-up available now is Miller/Blake/Roy/LMA/Przy.

 

[Minstrel]

It means that the team outscores the opponents most with Miller on the court, and second-most when Blake is on the court.

It does mean that. I thought you were asking if it meant anything about Blake and Miller as players. I don't think it does. Do you think it does?

The object of the game is to score more points than the opponent.

Nah. The object of the game is to hold your opponent to less points than you score. Easy mistake to make!

 

[PapaG]

Nah. The object of the game is to hold your opponent to less points than you score. Easy mistake to make!

+/- doesn't discriminate in that regard.

 

[Blazer_Hippie]

Then the calculation worked and the number is correct.

Please refer to Minstrel's post as it exactly mirrors my thoughts on the subject.

Nowhere does he claim the numbers must be wrong...I must be missing something

I come from a financial background and I'm used to financial metrics that don't really tell you anything by themselves. A lot of times they just raise a flag that something unusual might be happening when a number falls outside the norm.

There is so much static in these +/- numbers that I don't believe they say anything of substance about a player on their own...maybe the more advanced adjusted +/- do, I have no idea.

Similar to finance, when you see a weird outlier it can be useful to dig in and understand the underlying causes...but oftentimes it is unrelated to the way the original metric is pointed...FOR EXAMPLE -

Howard's +/- was +12 for the game.

If you take that number at it's face...wow Howard rules! He won the game for us...err...

But if you dig in, you realize he was on the court when Bayless made steals and started getting uber-aggresive and had a spurt of points while the Knicks were't scoring.

What I think the +/- for Howard ends up saying - wow, Bayless was really on fire for a while in the 4th quarter. ...someone could make the argument it was somehow due to Juwan's play, but eyeballing the game he got a couple rebounds but it was mostly Bayless just taking on all comers for a while...nothing to do with Juwan's play.

 

[PapaG]

What I think the +/- for Howard ends up saying - wow, Bayless was really on fire for a while in the 4th quarter. ...someone could make the argument it was somehow due to Juwan's play, but eyeballing the game he got a couple rebounds but it was mostly Bayless just taking on all comers for a while...nothing to do with Juwan's play.

So, doesn't that mean that Bayless was absolutely brutal earlier in the game, at least in terms of point differential of his unit versus the Knicks?