GeorgeMarcus wrote:MrPainfulTruth wrote:GeorgeMarcus wrote:
I'm just saying there's a lot of context to consider with rotations, availability, opponents etc having an effect on the values. It could easily skew/misrepresent what's going on to an extent. "To some extent" being a key phrase because the numbers are enough to convince me his impact has taken a significant hit. The man was firmly in the green for 21 effing seasons, so to suddenly drop to a significant red value is meaningful.
I was away from the board for a long time so idk if you're a regular Bron hater or an objective observer. If it's the former, I'll say this: if you're using this data as an anti-Bron argument then you're basically admitting the rest of his career was god tier.
I'm trying to look at this from a statistical point of view. Its obvious single game +/- isnt meaningful. But for the entire season, and considering almost everyone around him seems to have a positive value, and his entire team has a hugely positive outcome, i try to find an explanation to prove the hypothesis wrong that he is in fact a negative on an otherwise positive team. Can you explain?
I'm confused why you're asking me this question when I was one of the few who defended the significance of the OP.
Since you insist on making me play devil's advocate, here's an example to help you:
Team X is a juggernaut with 5 all stars in its starting lineup. 4 of the all stars get hurt, so the other is left playing with vet mins and G Leaguers for much of the season. They perform as expected, terribly, until the other 4 guys come back from injury at the same time. All of a sudden they're a juggernaut again. 4 stars put up majorly positive +/- and on/off while the other guy's numbers look terrible by comparison. Not because he's a negative impact player but purely as a result of circumstances out of his control.
It's an outlier example but demonstrates pretty clearly how a non negative player can appear negative. Hope that helps. Outliers happen and context is a complex beast with countless factors to consider.
Thank you that would be one hypothetical case where it could happen. However in teh OP we see the entire Lakers roster including AD himself, so everyone who played this season is on there (in your example, the imaginary 4 vet min guys woould obviously have the worst +/- by far). Of all players who played for the lakers this season, LeBron is amost dead last. I still look for a good explanation for this concrete season and this data, explaining how this doesnt clearly shows his negative impact.
What i understand is that no matter who he played with, those players got worse by being on the floor with him,, and the only reason the Lakers had a positive record overall is him sitting out. And it matches the eye test - he was often criticsed for his visible lack of defensive effort.
A lot of posters have ridiculed the OP for quoting raw +/- , maybe one of those experts can give a interpretation that explains the numbers. The only way i could twist this in favor of leBron is that for an entire season, while he played good, he had the incredible misfortune to catch every team mate in their worst minutes.
