Fiddling With Plus/Minus

by Akula Wolf on Feb 9, 2010 3:05 PM EST

StatSheet recently added +/- numbers for every game where substitution data is available. Below are totals for each Wolfpack player, including every game to date. I don't have the exact number of possessions each player has spent on and off the court, but I am able to estimate those numbers based on minutes played and the pace of each game.

	+/-	On OE	On DE	Off OE	Off DE
Macrowave	193	109.7	97.2	90.5	100.9
Wood	133	106.2	95.8	102	104.4
Mays	105	109.8	96.5	100.2	99.7
Horner	53	104.3	96.5	106.7	103
CJ Williams	36	108.8	99.7	102.9	100.6
Gonzalez	25	104.5	97.4	106.2	99.1
Degand	-109	108.6	108.3	102.8	91.2
Vandenberg	-119	88.5	89.7	108.2	99.6
Howell	-123	107	108.1	104.4	94.1
Painter	-133	94.3	99.2	106.7	97.9
J. Davis	-135	100.4	103.1	106.8	96.3

+/- = Net plus/minus. On-court +/- minus off-court +/-.
On OE/DE = Team's offensive and defensive efficiency when player is on the floor.
Off OE/DE = Team's offensive and defensive efficiency when player is on the bench.

No surprise to find the Macrowave leading the way, or that the offense is considerably less effective when he is on the bench. More baffling is how good Julius Mays looks based on the table, and more specifically how good State's offense has been with him on the floor. His in-conference numbers are terrible and yet the offense has been money. Weird. During a recent eight-game stretch (Holy Cross on 1/6 thru NCCU on 1/30), NC State averaged at least 1.1 points per trip while he was on the court. In six of those eight games, the Pack averaged better than 1.2 points per possession. He's got some sort of intangible voodoo action going on. It's certainly not his meager contributions making the offense go when he's out there.

Lots of caveats here, as always: small samples in a number of cases, varying degrees of difficulty depending on when and where a player sees action, who they're on the court with, etc. Once StatSheet gets around to adding player pairs, this stuff should prove more useful.

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Comments

vandeberg

never had a chance. He is typically coming in for the macrowave, so the OE is bound to drop off significantly. Although he does appear to have a positive effect on the defense, which is also not surprising.

How is CJ not a -? He must have been on the court for some big runs against some of the lesser OOC teams, and we know his is typically not on the court against the better teams for any significant amount of time.

I wonder what amount of % minutes played makes these stats relevant.

by PACKHOOLIGAN on Feb 9, 2010 4:35 PM EST reply actions

Yeah, Big V never gets to play with Tracy, and I’m guessing he’s usually in with another reserve or two as well. That hurts.

I think CJ’s positive number is mainly a factor of spending so much time playing with the first team. Now that he’s coming off the bench if he’s coming in at all, we’ll see how that changes.

I wonder what amount of % minutes played makes these stats relevant.

A guess straight out of left field: 50%. Though even then you need a full season’s worth of data, and ideally some lineup or player pair data, to really draw anything concrete from them.

Backing The Pack

by Akula Wolf on Feb 9, 2010 6:21 PM EST up reply actions