michaelm wrote:cupcakesnake wrote:bisme37 wrote:Timmy has the best career +/- for any player with over 500 games played.Spoiler:
https://www.statmuse.com/nba/ask/best-career-plus-minus-per-game-with-100-games-played-nba-with-over-500-gp
Raw plus/minus basically tells us: who played in the most successful lineups during their careers.
Credit is due for these players contributing to good lineups, but looking at the list it's pretty clear: these are the guys who were really blessed in terms of always being on competitive teams. Tatum is the modern poster child for this, but of course we're also seeing Stockton/Malone, Curry/Green, all those Spurs, etc. There's a couple guys that I find impressive to be on this list. Guys who were in a lot of situations and always seemed to drive success. Duncan and Tatum... guys who were drafted into 50-win teams and had competitive rosters their whole careers, of course they have sick plus/minus stats.
Also, this data only goes back to 1997.
I make no GOAT case for Curry, but you will have to tell me about all the success GSW had without Curry, and explain GSW winning in 2022 with Wiggins as the second best player. I am a Wiggins fan, but he certainly seemed better next to Curry and Green than he was elsewhere.
Timmy was my favourite player before Curry, and for similar reasons ie he is a team player. At least 3 of his titles involved well constructed and well coached teams but no superstars, so like Russell was he lucky with the players who were on his teams or were they lucky to be on Timmy’s teams ?.
You're misunderstanding me. I'm in no way saying any of these guys aren't responsible for the success of their teams. It's clear as day to me that the best players are the most responsible for their teams success.
Plus/minus is a very simple stat. It's just how much your team outscored the other while you were on the floor. It's not a magic number trying to tell us who the best is, or how to rank players. It's very obvious that players who spend more time in strong lineups are going to have strong +/- numbers. It's not even on/off, it's just raw +/-. It's not seperating the player from the lineup in any way.
So a player like Curry, you can look at his whole career and roughly say when he should have good or bad +/-. He gets drafted into a fairly mediocre situation (common for lottery picks). He's logging a ton of minutes with Monta Ellis, Corey Maggette, Anthony Morrow, Anthony Tolliver. The next year it's David Lee and Dorrell Wright. Obviously Curry isn't going to put up strong +/- in those lineups, because those lineups are going to lose a lot of those minutes. Fast forward to 2013, and the Warriors are starting to have a real team. Klay Thompson, Andrew Bogut, Jarrett Jack. Strong 2-way team starting to develop. Now those lineups around Curry are winning more minutes, and we're starting to see positive numbers. Then... well then the Warriors really start adding talent. Iggy, Draymond, finally Kevin freaking Durant. We get a few years of those lineups just crushing everyone. We get 5 years of Curry posting joke +/- numbers (+13 to +18). In the era after that, when Curry has way less talented teams, we get more normal +/- (+2 to +6, with a nice, fat +10 in 2022). Warriors still typically win the Curry/Draymond minutes, but these lineups are competitive more than overwhelming.
When comparing NBA all-time greats using raw +/- data, you absolutely have to think about the lineups they played in. Stars are almost always going to post positive +/-. Some of those stars are having those numbers deflated for many seasons of their career because their lineups are bad or medicore. Other stars play almost their whole careers on competitive lineups, consistently outplaying opponent lineups by a lot. It's not complicated. Someone like Chet Holmgrem (+10.4) is likely to have massive +/- while Wemby (-0.6 so far) is going to post mediocre numbers for a little while.
Stockton/Malone, Curry/Dray/Klay, Duncan/Manu/Parker. We should expect these consistent winning groups to be the leaders in +/-. They deserve credit for driving those lineups, of course, but when we're comparing stars to stars, we're assuming they're all driving successful lineups. The ones who stand on extra in +/- it's more about team quality and roster consistency.
This isn't about player quality. This isn't about carry jobs. This is just about teammate quality around the all-time greats. We can use more complicated numbers to figure out the other stuff.
