khandor’s sports blog

There are many different ways to assess the performance of a player or a team, in general, in a basketball game.

One of the simpliest is this:

1. Use a traditional Box Score.

2. Count Rebounds [Reb], Assists [Ast], Steals [Stl], Blocked Shots [BS] and Points Scored [Pts] as “Positives”.

3. Count Missed FGAs [FGA-FGM], Missed FTAs [FTA-FTM], Turnovers [TO] and Personal Fouls [PF] as “Negatives”.

4. Do NOT weight any of the individual statistical categories in an unique way.

5. Add the “Positives” and the “Negatives” together for that specific game.

6. Refer to this “Composite” number as a form of “Simple Plus/Minus” [SPM] which reflects each player’s tangible contribution to that specific game, relative to one another.

7. Compare each player’s and each team’s SPM for this specific game.

———————————

When you take a look at the Box Score for last night’s Raptors vs Grizzlies game, as an example, and examine it in this way, this is what you will find:

SIMPLE PLUS/MINUS [SPM] Sat Feb 07 2009
RAPTORS		GRIZZLIES
Starters
Parker-A Calderon-J O’Neal-J Bargnani-A Graham-J	+2 +12 +5 0 +9	Conley-M Mayo-OJ Gasol-M Warrick-H Ross-Q	+16 +7 +14 +11 +13
Sub-Total	+28	Sub-Total	+61
Bench
Kapono-J Moon-J Ukic-R Voskuhl-J Bosh-C Jawai-N Solomon-W	+4 +17 +1 0 DNP DNP DNP	Buckner-G Milicic-D Jaric-M Miles-D Arthur-D Gay-R Haddadi-H	+4 +1 -1 +6 DNP DNP DNP
Sub-Total	+22	Sub-Total	+10
TOTAL	+50	TOTAL	+71

 

There were only 3 players for the Raptors whose raw performance numbers [i.e. SPM] indicate that they made a positive contribution overall to their team’s effort and at least held their own against their counterparts for the Grizzlies:

 

1. Jamario Moon [+17, MP/28]

2. Jose Calderon [+12, MP/36]

3. Joey Graham [+9, MP/26].

 

When different NBA Analysts state that there are certain players on the Raptors who are being used incorrectly, or are better basketball players than many casual NBA fans might realize, this is the type of basic statistical evaluation upon which these assessments are based.

 

Although rudimentary game stats like SPM do not always tell the whole truth about how a player or a team actually performed in a specific match-up, they can certainly be helpful in this regard and allow a casual fan to increase his/her understanding of both Effectiveness & Efficiency in a NBA game.

 

If you watched last night’s Raptors/Grizzlies contest, either live or on videotape delay … 

 

Were you able to tell at the time that Moon, Calderon and Graham were the 3 best players for Toronto?

 

… and that:

 

1. Andrea Bargnani [0, MP/31]

2. Jake Voskuhl [0, MP/2]

3. Roko Ukic [+1, MP/16]

4. Anthony Parker [+2, MP/40] 

5. Jason Kapono [+4, MP/30]
6. Jermaine O’Neal [+5, MP/32]

 

might have been their 6 worst?

 

If not … then maybe next time you will see a few things in a slightly different light.

Tags: Andrea Bargnani, Anthony Parker, Chris Bosh, Darius Miles, Darko Milicic, Darrell Arthur, Greg Buckner, Hakeem Warrick, Hamed Haddadi, Jake Voskuhl, Jamario Moon, Jason Kapono, Jermaine O'Neal, Joey Graham, Jose Calderon, Marco Jaric, Mark Gasol, Mike Conley Jr., Nathan Jawai, NBA.com, OJ Mayo, Quintin Ross, Roko Ukic, Rudy Gay, Will Solomon

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 8th, 2009 at 12:25 pm and is filed under Basketball, NBA. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.