Russell Westbrick Discussion: Clipper Gonna Clip

Those are the types of games we want to see more of from Russ. Too bad the team couldn’t get the stops in the fourth.

 

Who has a stat line like that and 0 on the +/-?

 

He's doing what Kobe did in 2012/2013, he's the only one fighting out there and literally doing whatever the team needs.

 

+/- is a useless stat. All it says is; for the time that Westbrook was on the floor there was no point differential between the points scored by us and the points scored by NY.

The 4 other players around you can all be playing terrible, and your keeping the team in the game bur your +/- is still 0. There’s no context to a +/- number. It’s useless.

Westbrook finished the first quarter at a -16 because the whole team got obliterated. Then he carried the whole team in the third and had a +10 for that quarter. But everyone else around him had high +/- even though they all missed a ton of shots and turned the ball over. They had no impact on the game in the third but just benefitted from Russ going supernova and scoring or assisting 27 out of 30 points.

 

It's not useless, it can be an indicator of terrible defense.

 

It's not useless. The best players have the best +/-. Caruso had always the best +/- with Lebron and AD. It makes more sense if it's an average of a series of games but has value in a single game. It also helps to make sense of empty stats like Drummond and Harrell do.

In this case, we were down like 15 early in the Q1, so it's nice that he bounced back and finished with 0 meaning he played winning basketball the remainder of the game. Can't say the same about THT.
You can, ie, identify that our comeback was not due to THT and his absence of the court helped us

 

No it can’t be. It’s a team vs team stat. Did you score more or less points than the other team with the 4 other players you played with.

It also tends to penalise or reward star players who leave the quarter early to come in and run the second unit depending on if the bench is strong or not relative to other team’s benches.

It’s literally useless to look at a single player’s +/- in a box score. Provides no context to how they played. That’s why they’ve tried to create so many advanced stats to provide context.

 

+/- is useless as an individual star because it relies on who you play alongside and against and gives no context to how you played in that unit.

Caruso had good plus or minus numbers because while he was on the floor, he played the majority of his minutes with some of the best players in the NBA in Lebron and AD. Alongside his defensive contributions that unit out scored the opposition more times than not.

His defensive contribution was excellent, but Caruso wasn’t a great contributor on the offensive end, so if we didn’t have Lebron and AD putting up numbers in bunches he would have poor +/- regardless of the defence. Likewise if he played more minutes without AD and Lebron his numbers would also be lower.

And this is what I mean by context. Today Westbrook carries during the third quarter, contributes 27/30 points, plays excellent D and gets 3 stops, and his +/- is 10 while AD’s is 9, even though he goes 1/5, has a turnover and has a poor quarter.

Just look at the second half stats; Westbrook goes 25/5/5 with 2 steals, a charge and only has a single turnover, while AD has 9/5 and a turnover. Both have the same +/-.

 

I'm just going to assume anyone knocking Westbrook for last night didn't see the game.

 

I'll also again say that Russ is the main reason several games were even close and that we were able to come back and win others.

 

i'll weigh in a bit. +/- isn't useless. it's just not particularly useful in a single-game application. if, over time, across lineups, your team is ahead when you're in, that matters. as you said, +/- factors into more useful advanced stats.

AD's positive +/- last night reflects his second half defense, imo. and THT's stats and +/- are a good reflection of his game. to your point, some of his defensive metrics are down this year because he's not playing with intensity, but they're also down because vogel has experimented with AD as basically the lone defensive player on the floor far too much.

last night's +/- also pretty effectively tells the story that their second unit was a lot better than ours.

anyway, not defending this use in general.

 

Yeah. I noticed some of that too. It’s a shame because he’s been one of a handful of guys who play hard

 

Russ is warming up in the same manner as he's done over the last few seasons. I think one of the biggest misconceptions about the guy....(that he is just a selfish stat chaser)....will be debunked this season. He will never be a great shooter, but he goes hard and looks to make plays for his teammates.

 

Pope also played big minutes with both and wasn't the best. Schroder also played big minutes with both and wasn't the best. Kuzma also played big minutes with both and wasn't the best. Because they didn't offer what Caruso offered.

Basketball is a team sport, so it helps look how the INDIVIDUAL impacted the TEAM. If you constantly have a positive +/-, your presence in the game puts the team closer to the win.

THT played horribly yesterday. Had a -18. If you watched the game, you probably saw that his presence on the floor was hurting us. When he returned in the 4th, I was like 'what is this guy doing here?'.

So yeah, I believe the +/- provides interesting data. Let's agree to disagree if you can't see that way

 

i think we're all still really underestimating the impact of having no set rotations all year. the full roster turnover was hard enough for both coaches and players, but the injuries shuffling everyone around is hurting the product on the floor, too.

if there's a positive from last night, maybe it's that the team and coaching staff might lean a bit into russ's chaotic energy and try to use that get through this rough patch. iow: maybe they try to play russ ball from the opening tip tonight and see what happens.

 

Something that Kenny and Jamal Crawford mentioned last night, Russ is still a dominant and effective player when he pushes the pace. Something good happens when we go out on fastbreak, hope they can take advantage of that