Real Plus Minus: any good

Gray Poster · Post #1 » by **Gray Poster** » Tue Jan 27, 2015 4:27 pm

I saw a new stat based basic +/- for each player . It adds stuff and claims to be better.
Explained: http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/10740 ... plus-minus
Current: http://espn.go.com/nba/statistics/rpm/_/sort/RPM

One note: Niko is our highest rated PF at 2.35, Taj 1.18 and Pau 0.6, with Noah at 0.96.
Butler is our highest rated player at 3.73.
Lebron is number 1.

Wont PerDont · Post #2 » by **Wont PerDont** » Tue Jan 27, 2015 5:19 pm

Gray Poster wrote:I saw a new stat based basic +/- for each player . It adds stuff and claims to be better.
Explained: http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/10740 ... plus-minus
Current: http://espn.go.com/nba/statistics/rpm/_/sort/RPM

One note: Niko is our highest rated PF at 2.35, Taj 1.18 and Pau 0.6, with Noah at 0.96.
Butler is our highest rated player at 3.73.
Lebron is number 1.

Well, at first glance it would seem those numbers pretty accurately assess our team. Lebron is the best player in the game. Jimmy is our best all around player. And before his recent slide (which I think Thibs jacking with his minutes would best explain), Mirotic was CRAZY efficient for us and I think we play better as a team when he is on the floor. He does so many things that other players who get "his" minutes don't IMO. I personally think Thibs jus biting the bullet and getting over his rookie aversion is the key to our season.

DannyNoonan1221 · Post #3 » by **DannyNoonan1221** » Tue Jan 27, 2015 5:27 pm

RPM is about as close as you get to a single-number rating for individual players. It takes into account who is on the court with you, who you are playing against, your individual stats and your team stats when you are off the court.

However, just like with every advanced stat, it has it's holes and not everyone buys into it. You can take it with a grain of salt that is probably a smaller grain than most other stats, especially PER. That grain of salt is enormous.

kodo · Post #4 » by **kodo** » Tue Jan 27, 2015 6:03 pm

Real PM isn't a new stat. It's just a variation of RAPM (regularized adjusted plus minus), and Adjusted Plus Minus has been researched since about 2004. I guess that still makes it fairly new compared to boxscore stats.

I think you're looking at last season's stats if Lebron is #1? Lebron is #11 for this season.

Any flavor of PM, APM, or RAPM is going to be highly affected by context & lineup. All these plus minus stats are very poor indicators of individual ability.

Some examples of RPM that don't pass the common sense test:

Tyson Chandler (#9) > Lebron James (#11)
Markieff Morris (#15) > Blake Griffin (#24)
Khris Middleton (#20) > Jeff Teague (#21)
Jared Dudley (#25) > Klay Thompson (#27)
Cody Zeller (#67) > Al Horford (#77)
over 100 players > Dirk Nowitzki (#103)

Another indicator is that it's incredibly volatile from season to season,unlike PER. Most players have a very steady PER once they mature. EG Taj Gibson in the last 4 years had a PER of 16.8, 16.0, 14.4, 16.9. Other than the 1 outlier year he's been steady.

But in RPM, this year he has a RPM of 1.18 (#93), last year he had a RPM of 4.20 (#23). A 300% swing is ridiculous, he's basically the same player.

And that kind of radical swing is fairly common. Last season Dirk Nowitzki was #5 on the list (6.35) and this year, as mentioned above, he is #103.