thedoper wrote:I think + - is best applied to comparing 5 man lineups. It doesn't make sense to distill it down as an assessment of individual contributions. Brook Lopez was exclusively a negative + - player (except his first year in Brooklyn) until he started playing with peak Giannis. Now he is consistently top 40 to #6 in the league last year. There is no way to isolate Brook Lopez on this one stat and say that he is anything other than a guy that plays well off of Giannis, and even that is debatable. This is not a ranking stat of individual contribution as I see it, otherwise the margin of error is far to great.
All of these names were in the top 20 of last year's + - leaders corrected for playing a minimum of 35 games.
Brooks Lopez
Eric Bledsoe
George Hill
Wesley Mathews
Donte Divincenso
Gordon Hayward
Mark Gasol
Dwight Powell
Duncan Robinson
These are only the names that debatably wouldn't be on a top 20 list of any ranking category in basketball last season other than being decent complimentary players. That is a 45% margin of error in just the top 20. Plus minus has it's uses as a stat, ranking players is not one of them.
If you start with Plus Minus as your mathematical foundation for any equation you are building your house in quicksand.
I get what you're saying Doper and it has some merit. But if you compare players within the same team and a pattern develops, I think the metric has a lot more meaning. And like I've said a hundred times, you can find a stat to support just about any argument you want to make. It's just not that simple. I pointed out that DLO went 7-19 last night. That is a fact. It doesn't mean he played a bad game. Cam countered with the fact he shot much better in the 4th quarter. Again, it doesn't mean he played a good game. Singular stats are pretty meaningless without more context. I tend to roll my eyes when someone brings up these singular stats, and then derives conclusions from them. I think most of us are smarter than that. We can watch the games and we know whether player A was effective or not. And that's true whether you're willing to admit it here, or your agenda prevents you from doing it.
thedoper wrote:I think + - is best applied to comparing 5 man lineups. It doesn't make sense to distill it down as an assessment of individual contributions. Brook Lopez was exclusively a negative + - player (except his first year in Brooklyn) until he started playing with peak Giannis. Now he is consistently top 40 to #6 in the league last year. There is no way to isolate Brook Lopez on this one stat and say that he is anything other than a guy that plays well off of Giannis, and even that is debatable. This is not a ranking stat of individual contribution as I see it, otherwise the margin of error is far to great.
All of these names were in the top 20 of last year's + - leaders corrected for playing a minimum of 35 games.
Brooks Lopez
Eric Bledsoe
George Hill
Wesley Mathews
Donte Divincenso
Gordon Hayward
Mark Gasol
Dwight Powell
Duncan Robinson
These are only the names that debatably wouldn't be on a top 20 list of any ranking category in basketball last season other than being decent complimentary players. That is a 45% margin of error in just the top 20. Plus minus has it's uses as a stat, ranking players is not one of them.
If you start with Plus Minus as your mathematical foundation for any equation you are building your house in quicksand.
I get what you're saying Doper and it has some merit. But if you compare players within the same team and a pattern develops, I think the metric has a lot more meaning. And like I've said a hundred times, you can find a stat to support just about any argument you want to make. It's just not that simple. I pointed out that DLO went 7-19 last night. That is a fact. It doesn't mean he played a bad game. Cam countered with the fact he shot much better in the 4th quarter. Again, it doesn't mean he played a good game. Singular stats are pretty meaningless without more context. I tend to roll my eyes when someone brings up these singular stats, and then derives conclusions from them. I think most of us are smarter than that. We can watch the games and we know whether player A was effective or not. And that's true whether you're willing to admit it here, or your agenda prevents you from doing it.
I think there is a lot of common ground here. I think + - applied to 5 man lineups is a cool metric within a team context, and it would be my personal preference to its effective use. To me, basketball is a fluid game and it is imperative to look to chemistry as a competitive advantage. Looking to individual metrics to assess blame will only get you so far. Yes it does happen a lot here and I am guilty as anyone in picking on individual players in the heat of cheering for a win. I think the biggest positive I took away from last night is that there is a way to play Rubio and DLo together. Ryan didn't seem up to communicating that ideal to both of these players earlier in the season, for whatever Finch got to them for this game. I hope it keeps up.
Didn't know where to put this. But this is huge in Kat development.
Of the 26 players in the NBA who have defended over 300 pick and rolls as the big this season, Karl-Anthony Towns ranks 7th in points allowed per possession, according to Synergy
I wonder if DLO's knee and wasn't his quad injured too, if that hampered him at all prior to his surgery? I guess we'll see if he trends up to finish the season, knock on wood he and KAT stay healthy.
I wasn't one who thought DLO was a savior nor do I think he is terrible either. I am simply hoping he is an upgrade over Wiggins. That remains to be seen and I don't think is too much to ask. Both are overpaid and neither are superstars (currently).
I'm not as angry over the pick being lost either, outside the top 3 the drop off is pretty strong. If we lose the pick this year it's not the end of the world. I'd rather KEEP it this year though of course, then give it up next, hoping it's in the teens instead of top 5 or whatever.
kekgeek1 wrote:Didn't know where to put this. But this is huge in Kat development.
Of the 26 players in the NBA who have defended over 300 pick and rolls as the big this season, Karl-Anthony Towns ranks 7th in points allowed per possession, according to Synergy
Karl-Anthony Towns has looked much improved to most of us here so it's great to see some data that supports and reflects that growth and affective play on defense. His reputation has been dragged through the mud the last couple of seasons and he has to be well aware of that. This is the first step no doubt, but winning cures just about everything. I'm not saying the Wolves' losses are all his fault -- far from it -- but he needs to be "the guy" on a team that wins more than they lose to completely change the narrative that surrounds him.
WolvesFan21 wrote:I wonder if DLO's knee and wasn't his quad injured too, if that hampered him at all prior to his surgery? I guess we'll see if he trends up to finish the season, knock on wood he and KAT stay healthy.
It's a fair question to ask for sure. It certainly wouldn't be the first time that an injury hindered a player's effectiveness. I did note in the last game thread that he appeared to be moving around much better -- better than he had at any other time in the season. I thought he looked quicker with more burst and less hitch in his movement overall. It was nice to see and I hope that his good health is finally here to stay.
WolvesFan21 wrote:I wonder if DLO's knee and wasn't his quad injured too, if that hampered him at all prior to his surgery? I guess we'll see if he trends up to finish the season, knock on wood he and KAT stay healthy.
It's a fair question to ask for sure. It certainly wouldn't be the first time that an injury hindered a player's effectiveness. I did note in the last game thread that he appeared to be moving around much better -- better than he had at any other time in the season. I thought he looked quicker with more burst and less hitch in his movement overall. It was nice to see and I hope that his good health is finally here to stay.
I'm pretty sure DLO was suffering from Covid. The one season he didn't have Covid he made the all-star team. :)
WolvesFan21 wrote:I wonder if DLO's knee and wasn't his quad injured too, if that hampered him at all prior to his surgery? I guess we'll see if he trends up to finish the season, knock on wood he and KAT stay healthy.
It's a fair question to ask for sure. It certainly wouldn't be the first time that an injury hindered a player's effectiveness. I did note in the last game thread that he appeared to be moving around much better -- better than he had at any other time in the season. I thought he looked quicker with more burst and less hitch in his movement overall. It was nice to see and I hope that his good health is finally here to stay.
I'm pretty sure DLO was suffering from Covid. The one season he didn't have Covid he made the all-star team. :)
Here is something to maybe consider. DLO's best year he was also on a competitive team, they made the playoffs. So does his effort and game improve if the team is actually competitive on the season? Versus when he is on a shitty team and sure he is certainly part of that, does it drag him down too?
As a base stat, our average + - has been abysmal for the year. Everyone is negative this year. That being said, McDaniels and KAT have been top of the heap. Logic compels us to believe that anyone playing with these two players for the majority of their minutes has had their metric brought up. Same with Net Rating, where KAT and McDaniels lead the team at negative contributions and the rest of the team get successively worse:
From both of these stats in isolation, you can't really even make a statistical distinction between the contributions of Rubio and Rookie Anthony Edwards.
One huge issue that I have noticed is the inconsistency of lineups. There is only one lineup with over 10 games played (11) that has averaged more than 5 minutes of gameplay together (9.6). That is Rubio, Towns, Beasley, Edwards, and McDaniels.
Injuries and Saunders' merry go round of substitutions have made it really challenging to establish any sort of consistency with this team or develop any statistical model to say anything of merit about this team other than collectively they stink.
As a base stat, our average + - has been abysmal for the year. Everyone is negative this year. That being said, McDaniels and KAT have been top of the heap. Logic compels us to believe that anyone playing with these two players for the majority of their minutes has had their metric brought up. Same with Net Rating, where KAT and McDaniels lead the team at negative contributions and the rest of the team get successively worse:
From both of these stats in isolation, you can't really even make a statistical distinction between the contributions of Rubio and Rookie Anthony Edwards.
One huge issue that I have noticed is the inconsistency of lineups. There is only one lineup with over 10 games played (11) that has averaged more than 5 minutes of gameplay together (9.6). That is Rubio, Towns, Beasley, Edwards, and McDaniels.
Injuries and Saunders' merry go round of substitutions have made it really challenging to establish any sort of consistency with this team or develop any statistical model to say anything of merit about this team other than collectively they stink.
FYI - I really like it when guys provide links to their data as you have done here. Sometimes I see stats quoted and wonder "where the F are you pulling that sh*t from?" Not the basic stats obviously, but the heavily filtered/split data. I mostly look at Basketball Reference, but I assume many here get stuff from other sources since half the time I can't find what they found on BR.
