How many of you actually believe single game +/- tells you who had the most impact?

[Kblaze8855]

I see we’re back on this and I feel like almost every mention of it is trolling. Has plus minus reached strictly trolling status?

[imdaman99]

I only believe it if it involves my favorite player otherwise it's useless

[Xiao Yao You]

I see we’re back on this and I feel like almost every mention of it is trolling. Has plus minus reached strictly trolling status?

sportswriters use it all time. I think many believe it is a telling stat. Maybe because it's easier to digest than other advanced numbers?

[1987_Lakers]

Going by a single game, +- is pretty useless. There are alot of variables that go into why a player had a good/bad plus minus. It's a stat that should be used during a large sum of games.

[Xiao Yao You]

trolls certainly love it as long as it works in their favor. If it doesn't than they forget all about it and find something else that will push their agenda. I see you Manny!

[Axe]

I see we’re back on this and I feel like almost every mention of it is trolling. Has plus minus reached strictly trolling status?

Braindead lebron haters love it if lebron has a negative one but will say it's meaningless if he gets a positive one. Weird af.

[ImKobe]

Braindead lebron haters love it if lebron has a negative one but will say it's meaningless if he gets a positive one. Weird af.

Bran fans started the +/- trend but are whining now that it's used against them. Classic.

[Full Court]

In all seriousness, +/- is absolutely useless in evaluating a single player's performance.

It's utility is in seeing what combinations of players work best together as a trend.

And Bronie fluffers were the ones who started touting it. That's why the rest of us use it to poke at them.

[tpols]

Any and every stat will have outliers. All +/- does is tell us whether your team outscored the opposing team when you were on the floor or not. It's probably pretty important even over counting stats.

[tontoz]

+/- needs a large sample size to be reliable. Looking at an entire season it is a pretty good indicator of a players impact. Over the course of a single game it can be good for some entertaining hot takes but not much else.

This is from page 1. My view hasn't changed but I confess I will site single game numbers from time to time if they reinforce my argument.

[Jasper]

I see we’re back on this and I feel like almost every mention of it is trolling. Has plus minus reached strictly trolling status?

I don't think so unless someone is using it as only their only argument.
But I will say the king of +/- is Brogdon.

He has had a very impactful way throughout his career. Bucks, Indy and now Boston.
He may start a pass , not an assist / but leads to points. Critical rebounds, and slashing to the hoop to break up the defense.

I never wanted the bucks to drop him / but Boston is perfect fit for his bad feet.

[Manny98]

I used to but as I have gotten older I have leaned more towards the eye test when judging a players performance than stats.

Too many factors that have nothing to do with the players performance have an effect on their +/- to the point that the stat is useless when looking at a single game

[dankok8]

Not big on raw +/-

For careers, seasons or single games. If its not accounting for lineups or opponents then is it really useful?

RPM, RAPM AND PIPM are all adjusted forms of +/- AND take into account that tangible stuff. They're better measures of impact.

Even the adjusted one has issues. Once you start accounting for lineups, the sample sizes effectively get even smaller. As a result stuff like RAPM and PIPM is only useful for the regular season say three to five season stretches or 250-400 games and still suffer from extreme noise in the playoffs. The OFF samples when star players sit are very small and the snippets with various lineups are literally like a few possessions in a postseason.

[999Guy]

We have been hearing more and more about plus/minus lately. Many people(often trolls or people just looking to annoy) pop into topics touting or mocking someones on/off regardless of how they performed. Claims that people who had apparently big games must have had an "empty" performance(another concept that is growing more and more foolish over time but thats another topic).

Over the course of many games there are still on/off issues like who is on and off the floor with you but those can level off with a large enough sample size(or at least thats the justification for caring about them). So I wont go into that.

But in one game?


Ok.


When Kobe has 46/6/5 on good shooting and is -1 in 40 minutes while Odom has 20/7 in 44 minutes and is +7....is there anyone here who thinks Odom had the greater impact on the game far as helping the team? Or when he had 51/9/4 on .626ts(for those who care) vs Odoms 16/10/6 on .504ts....Kobe -13 Odom +3....they played 44 and 45 minutes.

That something you caring about?


When Shaq has 44/20/5 in the finals for a negative six...but Rick Fox is plus two in 44 minutes and Lue is plus nine of 22 minutes.....

On the current version of ISH would there be someone on here talking about plus/minus?


Do those of you who come in topics talking that shit not realize how often it goes in the face of common sense or do you see it and simply not bring it up when it goes against the point you wish to make?






This is the Kobe 46 game by the way....














You honestly caring what the on/off splits were that game?



Maybe as like a "Jesus christ....look at this" bit of trivia. But I see people straight up post these on/off numbers that fly in the face of all observation and defend it as if its a serious point.

That's just noise. You can't measure that difference unless you have some sort of feel for it, which humans can have. People "feel" their way into winning millions trading stocks, betting on games, and daily fantasy. Feel is a real science in itself. But the average fam won't know that.

I will say, I flat out believe it is possible Odom did have a better game. Purely due to how unlimited defense can be on effecting a basketball game. Ironically in a sport with such high scores, and scorers, defenders are the games best ever, and defense scales up and down better than just offense.

Never has the league seen a bad defensive, good offensive team win a title. It's seen bad offensive, good defensive teams win multiple times in every era.

But you need to just apply a simple level of critical thought to +/-. Kobe was a -1 while playing great offense...He was almost certainly playing bad defense. That's what my "feel" tells me as someone who pays attention to the sport and has for while. Now how bad exactly? I cant know that. But as a hunch, its the right assumption no matter what player you are talking about. And Kobe did play disgusting defense in 07. Critically thinking, I can put the performance into proper perspective.



Guy has pitiful offensive stats but is plus whatever? He was almost certainly playing great defense. And I've seen this with my own eyes many times. You just track the shit and compare/contrast your eye test with the +/- and +/- is capturing something, it just isn't doing it perfectly or purely because of all the variables, mainly teammates and oppostion.

But if you're not a dummy +/- will not confuse, surprise, or frustrate you.

[Im Still Ballin]

Jamal Murray And Nikola Jokic in the first round:

Jamal Murray: -25.8
Nikola Jokic: -24.7

What they're averaging:

Jamal Murray: 27.2 ppg, 5.6 rpg, 6.4 apg, 1.0 spg, 0.4 bpg, 2.6 topg on 59.8% TS

Nikola Jokic: 26.2 ppg, 12.4 rpg, 9.0 apg, 1.2 spg, 0.4 bpg, 2.8 topg on 57.5% TS