+/- numbers for the entire season

[biz]

So, basketball prospectus came out with their new stat pages and they have each players season long +/-. I've never really been a fan of the +/- stat when looking at one game, because its such a small sample size and its difficult to read too much into it. But now that we can see the season long +/- numbers, with over half the season over, these numbers are at least worth a look.

These are raw +/-, for all of the time they have been on the floor all season, by how many points did we outscore our opponents, or how many points did our opponents outscore us.

PG
Raymond Felton -30
D.J. Augustin -26
Sean Singletary -33

SG
Raja Bell +63
Shannon Brown -44

SF
Gerald Wallace +2
Adam Morrison -55

PF
Boris Diaw +58
Juwan Howard -28

C
Emeka Okafor -14
Nazr Mohammad -52

Last but not least... (ok well he kinda is)

Sean May -71


A few more former/new Bobcats:
Matt Carrol (CHA time only) -76
Jason Richardson (CHA time only) -43
Jared Dudley (CHA time only) -34
Ryan Hollins (CHA time only) +42

DeSagana Diop (DAL time only) -70

[TattoodCats4life]

GW is far more productive in an all around sense than Raja, so those numbers clearly don't mean much...

[Slam]

Considering Felts usually logs most of his playing time with Bell and Diaw, how can he be at -30 and they be at +63 and +58??

[playoffs...PLAYOFFS?]

Considering Felts usually logs most of his playing time with Bell and Diaw, how can he be at -30 and they be at +63 and +58??

because of the new lineup..Felton's +/- takes into account all the games before Diaw/Bell..ie, when we were losing

[biz]

GW is far more productive in an all around sense than Raja, so those numbers clearly don't mean much...

I wouldn't be so quick in saying the numbers mean nothing. Obviously Boris and Raja's numbers are abit inflated compared to those that have been here the entire year and had to go through the rough start, so comparing those two players to everyone else on the team won't be an even comparison. To provide some context, I did some rough calculations on Gerald's +/- since the trade, and it was around +70. Comparisons aside, Boris and Raja's +/- numbers by themselves are still very impressive.

One comparison that can be made though is D.J. vs Ray. As you can see from Gerald's numbers (+2 overall, +70ish since the trade) almost everyone on the team has improved their numbers since the trade, most by a lot (Sean May holding strong down at -71 though). But D.J. only got to play in 11 or so games before getting injured, and has missed out on the recent success that would've most likely helped his +/-. Whereas Felton has gotten the full boost of the trade, and still his +/- is lower than Augustin's.

[Ampsportsduo]

I'm not one to discard any type of information, but there are far too many variables to read anything into +/-.


One comparison that can be made though is D.J. vs Ray. As you can see from Gerald's numbers (+2 overall, +70ish since the trade) almost everyone on the team has improved their numbers since the trade, most by a lot (Sean May holding strong down at -71 though). But D.J. only got to play in 11 or so games before getting injured, and has missed out on the recent success that would've most likely helped his +/-. Whereas Felton has gotten the full boost of the trade, and still his +/- is lower than Augustin's.

Or you could say that because Raymond now only has Sean Singletary as a backup, he's logging even more minutes, which leads to tired mistakes. To assert that DJ is better playing better based solely on +/- is simply not accurate. Felton is playing almost ten more minutes per game over the course of the season, and the time thy spent sharing the SG role skews the numbers even more. It would be like arguing that because the team has played well in DJ's absence, the team is better without him. One stat doesn't make a case, particularly a bad stat.

[TattoodCats4life]

One comparison that can be made though is D.J. vs Ray. As you can see from Gerald's numbers (+2 overall, +70ish since the trade) almost everyone on the team has improved their numbers since the trade, most by a lot (Sean May holding strong down at -71 though). But D.J. only got to play in 11 or so games before getting injured, and has missed out on the recent success that would've most likely helped his +/-. Whereas Felton has gotten the full boost of the trade, and still his +/- is lower than Augustin's.

I agree, but at this point i say thank god we didnt trade felton away yet if at all...the thing with GW makes sense, he's got the negative and positive games, the new guys are all positive.

[biz]

I agree, but at this point i say thank god we didnt trade felton away yet if at all...the thing with GW makes sense, he's got the negative and positive games, the new guys are all positive.

No confidence in Sean Singletary as our starting PG? :D

Whenever I get some time I'll try and put together the +/-'s since the trade. That should put Raja and Boris's numbers in better context, although still a small sample size.

Another even comparison, though, is Raja vs. Boris - with Raja coming out 5 higher. I found that interesting.

[Ghost Kat]

Good defense of why Wallace's +/-, but before and after the trade Wallace has still been our most dependable producer on both ends so it does seem strange it's so low. DJ being out does hurt the +/- arguement between he and Felton. Even though Felton has hit some big shots as of late for the past five games he's shooting 27-66 on 2pt's and 5-18 on 3's. Since DJ injury's Felton has become more valuable to the team but he isn't shooting any better, just less. Surprised J-Rich had such a low total, Just shows who really won in that trade.

[Ampsportsduo]

Just as a for instance, look at the Lakers game...

The Bobcats had no answer for Andrew Bynum, but he ends up at -10 and Kobe was a +2. Pau Gasol, who played terribly, and Vladamr Radmonavic were both a +7. Was anyone watching that game thinking, if we can only stop Gasol and his 10 point outburst, we'll have a better shot at winning? Or if we can contain Radmanovic and his 1 rebound, 1 assist this one's in the bag?

Raymond Felton nearly puts up the first triple double in franchise history and his +/- is only one better than Sean Singletary, who had only one assist in the game. Was Shannon Brown's performance equal to Singletary in that game? They had the same +/-.

The real kicker... Sean May has a higher +/- than Shannon, Ammo, or Juwan this season.

NBA.coms numbers (http://www.nba.com/statistics/plusminus/plusminus_sort.jsp?pcomb=1&season=22008&split=9&team=Bobcats) are dramatically different than yours. Most notably, your example of Ray and DJ...

Felton: -1
Augustin: -27

[biz]

Just as a for instance, look at the Lakers game...


Not sure what you're trying to get at.. I said in my original post I agree that the numbers for individual games can sometimes get abit wacky :hypo:


The Bobcats had no answer for Andrew Bynum, but he ends up at -10 and Kobe was a +2. Pau Gasol, who played terribly, and Vladamr Radmonavic were both a +7. Was anyone watching that game thinking, if we can only stop Gasol and his 10 point outburst, we'll have a better shot at winning? Or if we can contain Radmanovic and his 1 rebound, 1 assist this one's in the bag?


a minor point is that you are only focusing on offensive stats. Jackson even said in his postgame press conference when asked why he was taking Bynum out at the end of the game said it was because he was having trouble on defense. Sure, we couldn't stop Bynum, but when Bynum was in there, we were able to score on them as well...


The real kicker... Sean May has a higher +/- than Shannon, Ammo, or Juwan this season.


Perhaps on the NBA.com numbers, but with the numbers I posted Sean May is way worse. Hence why I like using the numbers I do compared to the NBA.com ones.


NBA.coms numbers (http://www.nba.com/statistics/plusminus/plusminus_sort.jsp?pcomb=1&season=22008&split=9&team=Bobcats) are dramatically different than yours. Most notably, your example of Ray and DJ...

Felton: -1
Augustin: -27

As I said my numbers are are raw +/-. I.E. Take every minute they are on the floor, and add up our score when they are on the floor, and add up our opponents score when they are on the floor, and you have your +/-. NBA.com has some formulas and compare when they are in with when they are out and whatnot. With this large of a sample size I prefer the raw data to the formula, but to each his or her own.

Over the course of a season, with this much data, I think it becomes a useful stat. Everyone on the team has played with all different lineups, against all different lineups, in tons of different situations, by now the numbers shake out to fairly accurately reflect, hey, when player X in the game, for WHATEVER reason, we are outscoring our opponents more than when player Y is in. And at the end of the day, isn't that all that really matters? It reflects the intangibles of the game. So many things are important that don't show up in the box score, setting good screens, good defense, good communication, moving without the ball to draw defenders away, etc. If you do these things well its going to make it easier for your teammates to score, which helps your +/-, even if you don't have the points or rebounds to show for it.

I think it reflects my impressions of the team fairly accurately. Gerald being the best, Boris and Raja right behind him. Felton and Emeka and D.J. trailing alittle bit behind them, all the way down to AmMo and May being the two worst players. You may not agree with the exact order, but I think it is fairly accurate.

I do believe the stat is limited to comparing those on the same team, because of their common situation and fellow players. Although I did find a cool adjusted +/- stat that might make it easier to compare +/- of players on different teams. http://basketballvalue.com/index.php

[spectre]

Recently LB has been playing a starter...usually Crash til he was hurt...with the bench. If you have checked the boxscores lately the bench has been getting massacred in +/-. The starter who's in there with him is also going into the negative during these stretches.

Stats are nice and you can pick up a lot from them...but usually they all leave out parts of the equation. +/- is certainly one of them.

[dnbman]

Here are our starters over the last ten games (according to NBA.com):

Bell 55
Wallace 50
Felton 38
Okafor 30
Diaw 24

I don't understand the supposed NBA.com formula. It looks like they're simply adding the points scored while the player is on the court and subtracting the points scored against him while he's on the court.

Perhaps that site just added wrong?

[MilZo]

http://www.82games.com/0809/0809CHA.HTM