Free Ballin’

When John Hollinger joined ESPN, I was delighted to have an analytically minded basketball writer.  Ironically, as time goes on, I appreciate his scouting more and more and find his analytical abilities wanting.  I previously touched on the gaping flaws in his PER, and he just keeps disappointing me, writing:

“2. Welcome to the box score, plus/minus! ESPN’s box scores now include plus/minus in the far right-hand column, which it makes it easy to show, for instance, that C.J. Watson made quite a difference Sunday for the Warriors…”

Plus/minus statistics for individual players are so useless.  They tell you what happened, but not why they happened.  That the Warriors were successful when Watson was on the court doesn’t mean, in and of itself, that Watson was responsible for that success.  It doesn’t mean he wasn’t, either.  It doesn’t mean anything without more information.

Without context, a plus/minus score doesn’t tell you anything, and I’m not sure what context one would need to make plus/minus scores meaningful. 82games.com uses 5-man unit plus/minuses, and I think that can be useful, with enough data and context.  But if, for instance, you follow Hollinger’s thinking, San Antonio, which lost in Orlando the other night,  105-98, would have benefited from benching Tim Duncan (-13) for Kurt Thomas (+6) and Manu Ginobili (-19) for Michael Finley (+3)

Oh, and notice in the Warriors/Pacers game, Hollinger references, Danny Granger scored 42 points on only twenty-seven shots, grabbed 7 rebounds, and only turned the ball over twice in 41 minutes.  Granger (also a better than average defender) had a plus/minus of -7.  Ugh.