Magic and Bird Plus Minus Numbers

[FrodoBaggins]

As a huge McHale fan, I'd love to know his '87 & '88 numbers. He has the highest on-court ORtg on the team in both years based on a Twitter post from Squared2020. 1987-88 is particularly interesting to me, because BOS had a +9.2 or +9.4 rORtg in the 64 games McHale played, and like 6.3 points/100 possessions worse on offense in the 18 games without him.

[Djoker]

More Magic and Kareem are great too! Figured it was a long shot, but thought it was still worth mentioning -- plus having the games in one spot might be helpful for later use.

Can you point me to the Bird 1st round data?

Larry Bird - 1986 1st Round
Series Pace: 97.6

Plus Minus/Team Pts ON/Opp Pts ON

Game 1: +23/108/85
Game 2: +4/131/127
Game 3: +29/110/81

Total: +56/349/293

Bird played 136 minutes and sat 18 minutes.

ON: 126.2 ORtg, 106.0 DRtg, +20.3 Net Rtg
OFF: 84.7 ORtg, 125.7 DRtg, -41.0 Net Rtg
ON-OFF: +41.5 ORtg, -19.7 DRtg, +61.2 Net Rtg

Bird looks quite frankly tremendous in this small sample.

[f4p]

More Magic and Kareem are great too! Figured it was a long shot, but thought it was still worth mentioning -- plus having the games in one spot might be helpful for later use.

Can you point me to the Bird 1st round data?

Larry Bird - 1986 1st Round
Series Pace: 97.6

Plus Minus/Team Pts ON/Opp Pts ON

Game 1: +23/108/85
Game 2: +4/131/127
Game 3: +29/110/81

Total: +56/349/293

Bird played 136 minutes and sat 18 minutes.

ON: 126.2 ORtg, 106.0 DRtg, +20.3 Net Rtg
OFF: 84.7 ORtg, 125.7 DRtg, -41.0 Net Rtg
ON-OFF: +41.5 ORtg, -19.7 DRtg, +61.2 Net Rtg

Bird looks quite frankly tremendous in this small sample.

between jordan, magic, and bird in this thread, what was going on in the 1980's with some of these "off" numbers that are routinely -20, -30, -40 NRtg. did teammates just lose all hope when these guys weren't on the court or something? even for platooning, this seems extreme. also hilarious how different it was back then that bird sat all of 18 minutes in a first round sweep where his team won 2 games by almost 20.

[homecourtloss]

More Magic and Kareem are great too! Figured it was a long shot, but thought it was still worth mentioning -- plus having the games in one spot might be helpful for later use.

Can you point me to the Bird 1st round data?

Larry Bird - 1986 1st Round
Series Pace: 97.6

Plus Minus/Team Pts ON/Opp Pts ON

Game 1: +23/108/85
Game 2: +4/131/127
Game 3: +29/110/81

Total: +56/349/293

Bird played 136 minutes and sat 18 minutes.

ON: 126.2 ORtg, 106.0 DRtg, +20.3 Net Rtg
OFF: 84.7 ORtg, 125.7 DRtg, -41.0 Net Rtg
ON-OFF: +41.5 ORtg, -19.7 DRtg, +61.2 Net Rtg

Bird looks quite frankly tremendous in this small sample.

between jordan, magic, and bird in this thread, what was going on in the 1980's with some of these "off" numbers that are routinely -20, -30, -40 NRtg. did teammates just lose all hope when these guys weren't on the court or something? even for platooning, this seems extreme. also hilarious how different it was back then that bird sat all of 18 minutes in a first round sweep where his team won 2 games by almost 20.

Small off samples can lead to this especially if you get a stretch out of these small samples in which the team doesn’t score at all (only takes like 5-6 possession of not scoring).

For example, in more modern times, small off samples lead to some wild numbers.:

2012 LeBron vs. the Celtics: only 25 off minutes in a 7 game series with two games going to overtime

110.9 ORtg on, 63.0 ORtg off, +47.9
101.1 DRtg on, 110.6 DRtg off, -9.5

On: +9.8
Off: -47.6

On-off: +57.4

2016 LeBron vs. the Pistons didn’t have as small an off samples, but it was only 4 games and the pistons scored really well with James off.

120.5 ORtg on, 105.7 ORtg off, +14.8
103.7 DRtg on, 130.9 DRtg off, -27.2

On: +16.8
Off: -22.5

On-off: +39.3

You also had special circumstances such as low off minutes and injuries like to the 2015 Cavs that lead to a 100.7 ORtg on, 48.9 ORtg off, +51.8, etc.

You can see some wild numbers for Embiid as well with low off minutes. Vs. Toronto:

+89 in 237 minutes
-19 without in 99 minutes

Doing some tracking of older games , e.g., ‘’80s and ‘90s, you also had overall lesser backup talent to score and often pace slowed down as well, anecdotally speaking.

[Djoker]

Oh for sure. The off samples with 3 games are incredibly tiny. I'm happy calling it meaningless.

I'm impressed by the Celtics' 126 ORtg with Bird ON though...

[Djoker]

More Magic and Kareem are great too! Figured it was a long shot, but thought it was still worth mentioning -- plus having the games in one spot might be helpful for later use.

Can you point me to the Bird 1st round data?

Larry Bird - 1986 1st Round
Series Pace: 97.6

Plus Minus/Team Pts ON/Opp Pts ON

Game 1: +23/108/85
Game 2: +4/131/127
Game 3: +29/110/81

Total: +56/349/293

Bird played 136 minutes and sat 18 minutes.

ON: 126.2 ORtg, 106.0 DRtg, +20.3 Net Rtg
OFF: 84.7 ORtg, 125.7 DRtg, -41.0 Net Rtg
ON-OFF: +41.5 ORtg, -19.7 DRtg, +61.2 Net Rtg

Bird looks quite frankly tremendous in this small sample.

between jordan, magic, and bird in this thread, what was going on in the 1980's with some of these "off" numbers that are routinely -20, -30, -40 NRtg. did teammates just lose all hope when these guys weren't on the court or something? even for platooning, this seems extreme. also hilarious how different it was back then that bird sat all of 18 minutes in a first round sweep where his team won 2 games by almost 20.

Just want to comment on this.

The Bird sample is 3 games. Like that's meaningless how small it is. I wouldn't yet make any conclusions about Bird's numbers.

As for other 80's stars, we have a bunch of playoff data for Erving, Moses and Barkley from Harvey Pollack and they don't look so great. Erving and Moses look downright bad and Barkley looks good but not insane or anything.

Julius Erving

Spoiler:

Postseason: ON/ON-OFF

1977: +1.9/+10.4
1978: +3.0/-8.1
1979: NO DATA
1980: +1.3/-4.7
1981: -1.1/-4.1
1982: +2.3/+4.2
1983: +8.8/+10.3
1984: -6.1/-15.4
1985: +1.4/-3.1
1986: -0.9/-15.2
1987: -1.1/+1.9

Sixers Average: +1.6/-1.3
1977-1983 Average: +2.4/+1.4

Moses Malone

Spoiler:

Postseason: ON/ON-OFF

1983: +5.7/-5.1
1984: -7.8/-40.0
1985: +4.1/+9.0
1986: DNP (INJURY)

Sixers Average: +2.7/-3.1

Charles Barkley

Spoiler:

Postseason: ON/ON-OFF

1985: +5.0/+7.4
1986: +8.0/+37.0
1987: -1.4/+1.4
1988: --
1989: NO DATA
1990: -3.0/+19.0
1991: -1.5/-0.6
1992: --

Sixers Average: +2.3/+11.8

Magic and MJ do look spectacular though. But Squared2020's data spanning hundreds of regular season games has them looking spectacular too so those two guys are just legit impact giants. That much cannot be denied at this point.

[homecourtloss]

More Magic and Kareem are great too! Figured it was a long shot, but thought it was still worth mentioning -- plus having the games in one spot might be helpful for later use.

Can you point me to the Bird 1st round data?

Larry Bird - 1986 1st Round
Series Pace: 97.6

Plus Minus/Team Pts ON/Opp Pts ON

Game 1: +23/108/85
Game 2: +4/131/127
Game 3: +29/110/81

Total: +56/349/293

Bird played 136 minutes and sat 18 minutes.

ON: 126.2 ORtg, 106.0 DRtg, +20.3 Net Rtg
OFF: 84.7 ORtg, 125.7 DRtg, -41.0 Net Rtg
ON-OFF: +41.5 ORtg, -19.7 DRtg, +61.2 Net Rtg

Bird looks quite frankly tremendous in this small sample.

Will be interesting to see what happened in the ECF as that was their most dominant series.

1986 Bird ECF Game 1

Bird On: 78-60, +18
Bird Off: 50-36, +14

--Celtics outscored the Bucks 10-4 in the second quarter with Bird off.
--Celtics outscored the Bucks 5-4 at the end of the third with Bird off.
--Celtics played the entire 4th out him in garbage time.

1986 ECF Game 2

Bird on: 111-103, +8
Bird off: 11-8, +3

—Celtics outscored the Bucks 3-0 in the second quarter with Bird off
—Celtics tied the Bucks 6-6 with Bird off in the last 2:25 of the third
—Celtics tied the Bucks 2-2 with Bird off in the last 8 seconds of garbage time

1986 ECF Game 3

Bird on: 106-97, +9
Bird off: 5-10, -5

—Celtics tied the Bucks 2-2 with Bird off in 2nd quarter
—Celtics were outscored by the Bucks 3-8 with Bird off in the 3rd quarter due to foul trouble

1986 ECF Game 4

Bird on: 106-89, +17
Bird off: 5-9, -4
Note: Bird played 45 minutes and 25 seconds, which got rounded down to 45 minutes

—Celtics were outscored by the Bucks 5-9 with Bird off in the final 3:35 of the 3rd quarter. The only time bird sat in the whole game.

[DraymondGold]

Larry Bird - 1986 1st Round
Series Pace: 97.6

Plus Minus/Team Pts ON/Opp Pts ON

Game 1: +23/108/85
Game 2: +4/131/127
Game 3: +29/110/81

Total: +56/349/293

Bird played 136 minutes and sat 18 minutes.

ON: 126.2 ORtg, 106.0 DRtg, +20.3 Net Rtg
OFF: 84.7 ORtg, 125.7 DRtg, -41.0 Net Rtg
ON-OFF: +41.5 ORtg, -19.7 DRtg, +61.2 Net Rtg

Bird looks quite frankly tremendous in this small sample.

between jordan, magic, and bird in this thread, what was going on in the 1980's with some of these "off" numbers that are routinely -20, -30, -40 NRtg. did teammates just lose all hope when these guys weren't on the court or something? even for platooning, this seems extreme. also hilarious how different it was back then that bird sat all of 18 minutes in a first round sweep where his team won 2 games by almost 20.

Just want to comment on this.

The Bird sample is 3 games. Like that's meaningless how small it is. I wouldn't yet make any conclusions about Bird's numbers.

As for other 80's stars, we have a bunch of playoff data for Erving, Moses and Barkley from Harvey Pollack and they don't look so great. Erving and Moses look downright bad and Barkley looks good but not insane or anything.

Julius Erving

Spoiler:

Postseason: ON/ON-OFF

1977: +1.9/+10.4
1978: +3.0/-8.1
1979: NO DATA
1980: +1.3/-4.7
1981: -1.1/-4.1
1982: +2.3/+4.2
1983: +8.8/+10.3
1984: -6.1/-15.4
1985: +1.4/-3.1
1986: -0.9/-15.2
1987: -1.1/+1.9

Sixers Average: +1.6/-1.3
1977-1983 Average: +2.4/+1.4

Moses Malone

Spoiler:

Postseason: ON/ON-OFF

1983: +5.7/-5.1
1984: -7.8/-40.0
1985: +4.1/+9.0
1986: DNP (INJURY)

Sixers Average: +2.7/-3.1

Charles Barkley

Spoiler:

Postseason: ON/ON-OFF

1985: +5.0/+7.4
1986: +8.0/+37.0
1987: -1.4/+1.4
1988: --
1989: NO DATA
1990: -3.0/+19.0
1991: -1.5/-0.6
1992: --

Sixers Average: +2.3/+11.8

Magic and MJ do look spectacular though. But Squared2020's data spanning hundreds of regular season games has them looking spectacular too so those two guys are just legit impact giants. That much cannot be denied at this point.

Sorry to be a broken record, but do you have a source or the total On Net / Off Net for these guys? I've only recall ever seeing Pollack's regular season data. If I get the raw data to convert to per48, I can add them to the list of best 5-year stretches in playoff On/On-Off full-season On-off over in the Jordan thread.

...

As an aside, it's nice to see more Bird tracking. At the current pace, if people keep posting the tracking of new 86 playoff games, we'll have his playoff plus minus from that year done within a month lol

[homecourtloss]

1986 ECF Game 4

Bird on: 106-89, +17
Bird off: 5-9, -4
Note: Bird played 45 minutes and 25 seconds, which got rounded down to 45 minutes

[DraymondGold]

1986 ECF Game 4

Bird on: 106-89, +17
Bird off: 5-9, -4
Note: Bird played 45 minutes and 25 seconds, which got rounded down to 45 minutes

I take it back -- at this pace, we'll have Bird done by the end of the week

[homecourtloss]

1986 ECF Game 3

Bird on: 106-97, +9
Bird off: 5-10, -5

[Djoker]

Sorry to be a broken record, but do you have a source or the total On Net / Off Net for these guys? I've only recall ever seeing Pollack's regular season data. If I get the raw data to convert to per48, I can add them to the list of best 5-year stretches in playoff On/On-Off full-season On-off over in the Jordan thread.

...

As an aside, it's nice to see more Bird tracking. At the current pace, if people keep posting the tracking of new 86 playoff games, we'll have his playoff plus minus from that year done within a month lol

Yes here are the sources. Pollack's statistical yearbooks contain playoff plus minus as well (though not team and opponent points like for the regular season). And somewhat weirdly enough, there is no playoff data for 1979 and 1989 so that's why I marked those as no data.

1977:



1978:



1980-1987:

This FB group has all the Sixers guides from 1980-1990 uploaded. A whole bunch of other NBA publications as well.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1285227059581011

1990:



1991:

[homecourtloss]

All of the 1986 ECF numbers for Bird are done.

Spoiler:

1986 Bird ECF Game 1

Bird On: 78-60, +18
Bird Off: 50-36, +14

--Celtics outscored the Bucks 10-4 in the second quarter with Bird off.
--Celtics outscored the Bucks 5-4 at the end of the third with Bird off.
--Celtics played the entire 4th out him in garbage time.

1986 ECF Game 2

Bird on: 111-103, +8
Bird off: 11-8, +3

—Celtics outscored the Bucks 3-0 in the second quarter with Bird off
—Celtics tied the Bucks 6-6 with Bird off in the last 2:25 of the third
—Celtics tied the Bucks 2-2 with Bird off in the last 8 seconds of garbage time

1986 ECF Game 3

Bird on: 106-97, +9
Bird off: 5-10, -5

—Celtics tied the Bucks 2-2 with Bird off in 2nd quarter
—Celtics were outscored by the Bucks 3-8 with Bird off in the 3rd quarter due to foul trouble

1986 ECF Game 4

Bird on: 106-89, +17
Bird off: 5-9, -4
Note: Bird played 45 minutes and 25 seconds, which got rounded down to 45 minutes

—Celtics were outscored by the Bucks 5-9 with Bird off in the final 3:35 of the 3rd quarter. The only time bird sat in the whole game.

[Djoker]

Bird - 1986 ECF

ON: 116.3 ORtg, 101.2 DRtg, +15.1 Net Rtg
OFF: 120.6 ORtg, 107.0 DRtg, +13.6 Net Rtg
ON-OFF: -4.3 ORtg, -5.8 DRtg, +1.5 Net Rtg

The Game 1 garbage time in the 4th Q hurts Larry Legend here!

But no... he looks terrific. Can't wait to see the numbers for other rounds too.

[Doctor MJ]

Sorry to be a broken record, but do you have a source or the total On Net / Off Net for these guys? I've only recall ever seeing Pollack's regular season data. If I get the raw data to convert to per48, I can add them to the list of best 5-year stretches in playoff On/On-Off full-season On-off over in the Jordan thread.

...

As an aside, it's nice to see more Bird tracking. At the current pace, if people keep posting the tracking of new 86 playoff games, we'll have his playoff plus minus from that year done within a month lol

Yes here are the sources. Pollack's statistical yearbooks contain playoff plus minus as well (though not team and opponent points like for the regular season). And somewhat weirdly enough, there is no playoff data for 1979 and 1989 so that's why I marked those as no data.

1977:



1978:



1980-1987:

This FB group has all the Sixers guides from 1980-1990 uploaded. A whole bunch of other NBA publications as well.

https://www.facebook.com/groups/1285227059581011

1990:



1991:

Holy cow!

All this time I thought Pollard only gave the regular season data for plus minus.

Has anyone made spreadsheets out of the playoff data? If so, link, if not, can we get on that? Happy to help, but don’t want to be redundant.

Also Pollack’s plus and minus games are closely related to what I’ve been calling OnWin and OnLoss, and I’d like to compile that in spreadsheets too.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Djoker]

Holy cow!

All this time I thought Pollard only gave the regular season data for plus minus.

Has anyone made spreadsheets out of the playoff data? If so, link, if not, can we get on that? Happy to help, but don’t want to be redundant.

Also Pollack’s plus and minus games are closely related to what I’ve been calling OnWin and OnLoss, and I’d like to compile that in spreadsheets too.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

No spreadsheet for Sixers playoff data exists as far as I know. I only quickly compiled the numbers for Erving/Moses/Barkley.

Weirdly enough playoff data for the 1979 and 1989 playoffs not given by Pollack! Those two years are missing.

[Doctor MJ]

Holy cow!

All this time I thought Pollard only gave the regular season data for plus minus.

Has anyone made spreadsheets out of the playoff data? If so, link, if not, can we get on that? Happy to help, but don’t want to be redundant.

Also Pollack’s plus and minus games are closely related to what I’ve been calling OnWin and OnLoss, and I’d like to compile that in spreadsheets too.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

No spreadsheet for Sixers playoff data exists as far as I know. I only quickly compiled the numbers for Erving/Moses/Barkley.

Weirdly enough playoff data for the 1979 and 1989 playoffs not given by Pollack! Those two years are missing.

Yeah, weird.

Also, looking again, is it just 76ers playoff data and not the rest of the league? I might have seen that before.

Have not see the Plus game vs Minus game distinction though, and that's really fun to know someone was doing this way back when.

[Djoker]

Holy cow!

All this time I thought Pollard only gave the regular season data for plus minus.

Has anyone made spreadsheets out of the playoff data? If so, link, if not, can we get on that? Happy to help, but don’t want to be redundant.

Also Pollack’s plus and minus games are closely related to what I’ve been calling OnWin and OnLoss, and I’d like to compile that in spreadsheets too.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

No spreadsheet for Sixers playoff data exists as far as I know. I only quickly compiled the numbers for Erving/Moses/Barkley.

Weirdly enough playoff data for the 1979 and 1989 playoffs not given by Pollack! Those two years are missing.

Yeah, weird.

Also, looking again, is it just 76ers playoff data and not the rest of the league? I might have seen that before.

Have not see the Plus game vs Minus game distinction though, and that's really fun to know someone was doing this way back when.

Only Sixers players (and foes from Sixers games only) are included in Pollack's guides prior to 1994.

[DraymondGold]

1986 Celtics NBA Finals Plus Minus (in progress)

Here I'll be posting the plus minus data for Bird, McHale, Walton, and Hakeem from the 1986 NBA Finals. I did game 1 a while back (posted on previous page), and just watched game 2. Great game from Bird.

We have all the 1986 Celtics playoffs games, so others should feel free to help out on tracking Bird (+ other Celtics players). Nobody's looking at the 2nd round. If I have the time (tbd), I'll be looking at the finals games in order. Others should feel free to watch the games yourselves to double check the stats, track games I haven't gotten to yet, or just enjoy some NBA history! Links to the games are on the previous page in my post.

Game 4.1:

Spoiler:

Watch on YouTube

Not getting specific count for minutes in/out to save time.

Players to track: Bird, Hakeem — maybe Parish, Walton.
Bird #33 44 mins, Hakeem #34 38. McHale #32 40, Walton #5 18

1st.
15.40. 22-14 Celtics. Walton in. (for Parish)
18:25. 24-22 Celtics. timeout
23:27. 34-28 Celtics. end

2nd.
Same stars in.
26:00. 38-28 Celtics. restarts 27:30. McHale out.
28:45. 38-28 Celtics. Bird out, McHale in.
29:55. 38-30 Celtics. Bird back in, Walton out (Parish back in).

45:40. Hakeem out. 59-57 Celtics.
47:10. 61-59. End of 2nd. Celtics

3rd.
47:40. Hakeem back. 61-59 Celtics.
1:00:10. Walton in (Parish out). 77-72 Celtics.
1:01:43. Hakeem out 5 fouls. 79-72 Celtics.
1:06:40. Bird out. 89-76 Celtics .
1:11:30. 91-76. End of 3rd.

4th.
1:12:30. Hakeem back, Bird back, McHale out. 91-76 Celtics.
1:22:40. McHale back, Walton out. 105-87.
1:28:30. 108-91 Celtics. Hakeem out.
1:33:20. 112-98 Celtics. Bird out.

Final score: 112-100 Celtics.


Bird: Out: -2 +2 -2 = -2. In: +12 - -2 = +14.
McHale: Out: +8 -3 -6 = -1. In: +13
Walton: Out: 0 + 3 = +3. In: + 9.
Hakeem: Out: -8 + 4 = -4. In: -12 - -4 = -8.

Game 4.2:

Spoiler:

Watch on YouTube

Bird #33 44 mins, Hakeem #34 37. McHale #32 35, Walton #5 15

1st
24:18. 23-21 Celtics (3:46 in 1st). Walton in (for Parish)
31:40. 30-29 Houston. McHale out (for Parish).
End quarter. 31-30 Celtics.

2nd.
Same stars in.
43:10. 35-31 Celtics. McHale in (for Walton)
52:19. 41-34 Celtics. Hakeem out
56:28. 48-39 Celtics. Walton in
57:42. 48-39 Celtics. Hakeem back.
1:02:43. 54-43 Celtics. McHale out (For Parish)
End of quarter. 60-50 Celtics.

3rd.
At start, 60-50 Celtics. Walton out, McHale in.
1:30:20. 80-61 Celtics. Hakeem out.
1:31:45. 82-61 Celtics Bird out.
1:33:35. 84-65 Celtics. Bird back.
End of quarter. 94-69 Celtics.

4th
start. 94-69 Celtics. Walton in, McHale out. Hakeem back.
1:48:30. 100-75 Celtics. McHale in (for Parish)
1:49:05. 100-75 Celtics. Walton out
1:58:35. 111-86 Celtics. Bird out, Hakeem out.
1:59:45. 111-86 Celtics. McHale out.
Final score: 117-95 (+22 Celtics)

Bird: Out: -2 -3 = -5. In: +22 - -5 = +27.
McHale: Out: +5 -1 +0 -3 = +1. In: +22 - 1 = +21.
Walton: In: +2 +1 +0 = +2. Out: +22 - 2 = +20.
Hakeem: Out: -2 -6 +3 = -5. In: -22 - -5 = -17.

[Djoker]

As a huge McHale fan, I'd love to know his '87 & '88 numbers. He has the highest on-court ORtg on the team in both years based on a Twitter post from Squared2020. 1987-88 is particularly interesting to me, because BOS had a +9.2 or +9.4 rORtg in the 64 games McHale played, and like 6.3 points/100 possessions worse on offense in the 18 games without him.

Courtesy of Squared2020, here is some Bird and McHale data for you my friend! Tell me your thoughts.