Problem with any +/- stat is that it doesn't take into account lineups and replacement players. Whoever shares the court with LeBron James is going to have a better +/- than the guy coming off the bench with Richard Jefferson.
You do understand the difference between basic +/- and the Real Plus Minus (RPM), right?
RPM (as I understand it) is built up upon the foundations of Advanced Plus Minus (APM) and Regularized Adjusted Plus Minus (RAPM).
APM is defined as follows:
"It reflects the impact of each player on his team's scoring margin after controlling for the strength of every teammate and every opponent during each minute he's on the court.
Adjusted +/- ratings indicate how many additional points are contributed to a team's scoring margin by a given player in comparison to the league-average player whose adjusted +/- value is zero over the span of a typical game. It is assumpted that in a typical game a team has 100 offensive and 100 defensive possessions. For example, if a +6.5 "adjusted +/-" player is on the floor with 4 average teammates, his team will average about 6.5 points better per 100 possessions than 5 average players would."
RAPM is described as follows:
In "Regularized Adjusted Plus-Minus" (RAPM), the goal is to provide more accurate results by employing a special technique called "ridge regression" (a.k.a. regularization). It significantly reduces standard errors in Adjusted Plus-Minus (APM).
Conventional adjusted plus-minus is shown to do a poor job of predicting the outcome of future games, particularly when fit on less than one season of data. Adding regularization greatly improves accuracy, and some player ratings change dramatically. The enhancement with the RAPM is a Bayesian technique in which the data is combined with a priori beliefs regarding reasonable ranges for the parameters in order to produce more accurate models.Ultimately, Real Plus Minus actually takes into account the teammates and opponents the said player is sharing the court with at the time.
Now I am not by any means trying to suggest it is a perfect statistic that NEVER gives the wrong idea. There are going to be cases (for example, low minute sample sizes) that are going to at times give off not entirely accurate results. That's the same with ANY statistic - even your basic PPG, FG% and PER stats are going to be inelastically skewed in some cases.
The fact is that RPM (and similar +/- based stats) is really one of the only of the only quantifiable statistics that gives some insight into the way a player impacts games outside of box score numbers.
It's not the 'be all end all' but it's a nice angle to have on things, and it can help to one to appreciate the true value of guys like Amir Johnsons and Paul Millsaps out there - the guys who are so much more valuable / impactful to their teams than their basic stat lines would indicate.
On the other hand, it also helps to identify the guys out there like Derek Rose, Jahlil Okafor, Ty Lawson, Kobe Bryant and Bradley Beal - guys who stellar stats and/or reputations, but who actually seem to hurt their teams more than they help them.
Now I do think RPM probably is at it's most powerful when used to analyse players who have held similar trends over more than one context (for example, more than one season or with multiple teams). That lends some additional weight to your agument for Holiday as a defensive player, since his DRPM stats have been positive for two out of the past three seasons, suggesting that he is (overall) a good defensive player.
However it still doesn't help your agument that he's a better offensive player than Thomas, because in terms of ORPM Thomas has been a good +2 or more advantage over Holiday every year since RPM stats have been recorded.
I really don't need to look at +/- stats to know that Jrue HOliday (when healthy) is a better shooter and better defender than Isaiah Thomas. If you don't like the trade idea, it's cool. I was bored and wondered which team would say no. Obvious this forum is bias towards Celtic players so it doesn't surprise me that they'd hate a trade that effectively has us giving up a backup point guard (Thomas) and a backup big who isn't likely to be here next year (Sully)... for a quality PG who can start long term when healthy (Jrue), a player a lot of people think would be a great fit as a starting PF in Brad's system (Ryan Anderson), and an albatross contract.
1) You never said Holiday is a better shooter than Isaiah Thomas. You said he is a
better offensive player than Isaiah Thomas. There is a very distinct difference between those two claims, different enough that it might change my stance on whether I agree / disagree with you on it.
So which is it?
2) Why is it that you consider Ryan Anderson a starting PF, but refer to Thomas a starting PG? I get the impression you simply use the terms "starting" and "backup" as you see fit in order to selectively credit / discredit players with the aim of adding weight to your argument. However I don't see much reasoning in the real world as to why Anderson would be considered starting calber, while Thomas wouldn't be.
For example...
Ryan Anderson:
* He's averaged 25.8 MPG for his career, which are basically sixth man minutes
* He's a below average defender (-2.92 DPM)
* He's a medciore rebounder for his position (7.7 Per 36 for his career)
* He's a below average passer (1.2 Assists Per 36 and 0.9 Ast:TO for his career)
* He's a below average finisher in the paint (55% FG inside 3 feet for his career)
* He's mediocre at getting to the line but good at finishing there (21.2% career FTR & 86% FT)
* He's a got an average scoring efficiency (1.22 Pts Per FGA)
* He's an excellent outside shooter (37.8% 3PT and 42% on long twos)
Isaiah Thomas:
* He's averaged 28.8 MPG for his career, which are much closer to starter minutes
* He's a below average defender (-2.11 DRPM)
* He's a mediocre rebounder for his position (3.1 Per 36 for his career)
* He's an above average passer (6.1 Assists Per 36 and 2.3 Ast:TO for his career)
* He's a below average finisher in the paint (63.7% FG inside 3 feet for his career)
* He is elite at getting to the free throw line and finishing there (career 37.2% FTR & 86.4% FT)
* He's a got an excellent scoring efficiency 1.33 Pts Per FGA for his career)
* He's a good outside shooter (career 35.8% on threes and 40.3% on long twos)
Thought I'd make use of that RPM stat there, since I know you love it so much
There's better fake trades to fantasize about. Getting into this with you would be similar to the years I spent trying to convince this forum why Rondo's role was inflating his stats and why a player like Steph Curry would flourish if given the same opportunity. I don't have the energy for it in such an insignificant thread. If you want to believe Thomas is better than a healthy Jrue Holiday, that's fine. Whatever.
I don't get it.
First of all, why do you a debate such as this so personally, when nothing that I am saying is a personal attack on you? As I said earlier, I've tried my best this whole time to remain fair and objective in my tone, and haven't made any attempts to mock you or to make fun of your trade - all I've been doing this whole time is trying to understand your point of view.
Secondly, why do you feel the need to bring up completely unrelated arguments (like the Rondo / Curry things) every single time somebody doesn't agree with one of your views, in an attempt to add credibility to your argument? Everybody takes guesses / predictions about things, and everybody is going to have some predictions they end up right about, and some they end up wrong about.
For example, I predicted that the 2014 draft class was way overrated. I predicted Wiggins would end up a 20 PPG player but not a franchise level player, that Jabari Parker would be nowhere near as good as Melo (as people were comparing him to), that Embiid would be lucky to play his first season, and that Gordon was a bum. So far I've been right on all four counts.
I also predicted that Vonleh would be a beast, and that Lavine wouldn't be any good, and that Smart would be a poor-man's Dwyane Wade. I was dead wrong on all three of those counts.
We aren't fortune tellers, so we're not going to be right on everything, and nobody will hold that against you if you approach your predictions / arguments with some modesty and humility.
In your case you were right about Curry, but you were wrong about Rondo...since he's now out of Boston, is no longer playing with three hall of famers, and is arguably putting up numbers that are up there with the best of his career (11.7 Points, 11.6 assists, 6.4 rebounds, 1.9 steals, 45% FG, 33% 3PT).
You have also been wrong about a number of other things, but (unlike many people here) I'm not going to pull you up on that, because I don't believe it's fair...nor do I believe it is relevant to this specific argument. Hence bringing up such things would (IMHO) be in line with making a personal attack.
That said, when you go and do exactly that (by bringing up things like the Curry / Rondo arguments) you are opening up a giant can of worms, and you're just
asking for people to bring up other past non-thread-relevant things to try to discredit you.
My suggestion is that if you want people to respect and appreciate your opinion, try to do the following guidelines:
1) If you are making an argument based purely on opinion, then state this
2) If you are making an argument based on fact, then justify you argument with actual facts
3) Stick to the subject at hand rather than clutching at past unrelated discussions for credibility
For example with this thread - the only thing you said that I took any issue with was when you made the claim that Jrue Holiday was a better offensive player than Isaiah Thomas, and hence I called you out and asked you why you feel that.
All you had to do is either:
a) Say you felt this to be the case because of statistical reason XYZ or
b) Say you didn't have anything objective to back it up, but you just personally prefer the way he plays
I'd have respected either of those responses, or anything along the same lines.
Instead you reply by (in a nutshell) saying "he is better (fact) and I can't be bothered giving reasons" - which kinda comes across as both an arrogant and lazy response.
Topic: Which team says no? (Pelicans trade idea) (Read 11998 times)