Comments on: Layups: Ken Pomeroy on Single-Game Plus-Minus

By: Neil Paine

Fri, 11 Feb 2011 16:15:05 +0000

#1 - It's definitely normal at the NBA level, so I think it's safe to assume that's true for college as well.

#2 - Good point about the on/off stints not truly being random in real life. There is some information being conveyed even in a single-game +/- sample, unlike in the simulation. I think Ken's main point was just that the signal-to-noise ratio is really low for +/- at a game level, probably much lower than it is for the box score stats.

]]>

By: Nathan Walker

Thu, 10 Feb 2011 19:31:30 +0000

I agree with the point on variation: single-game data is highly likely to experience variation over the course of any basketball season. Here's what Ken is missing, however: the +/- data represents substitution, not random players. While not being able to show true value as well, single-game plus-minus surely shows us (at least to some degree), how the team fared with specific lineups in play.

I'm not making an extrapolative statement here: I don't think that small game samples can tell us about a player in the long run. However, I think that single games speak for themselves, just as any other data point does.

]]>

By: Phil

Thu, 10 Feb 2011 15:38:41 +0000

What distribution does +/- per minute/per game/per year follow empirically?

]]>