The Unfortunate Rise Of The +/- Stat In The NBA

What the hell does the +/- stat have to do with anything relevant?  I don’t have an answer (even a snarky one) because Ireally want to know.  Is it really we should be gauging player’s team worth by?  I mean, come on, the stat doesn’t even take into consideration garbage time.  Just trying to come up with a counter argument as to why it’s helpful makes me want to vomit in my shoes and run a marathon.

Let’s look at the December 12 game against the Bulls, shall we?  That game was over at the end of the third quarter with the Celtics comfortably up by 20.  Enter garbage time.  Four bench players had a higher +/- stat for the game than Paul Pierce. Pierce had a +8 in 25 minutes scoring 14 PTS. Rasheed Wallace (+13) Eddie House (+14) Brian Scalabrine (+11) and Shelden Williams (+11) all posted a better +/- for their time in game. Freaking J.R. Giddens was +5 in four minutes.  Are you going to tell me with a straight face that all of the players are better to have on the floor than Pierce?  Of course not, unless you are a huge Scal fan and you want him to take every shot, in which case you can stop reading right now.

The only thing a +/- stat would be good for is the NHL and even that is negligible.  You could argue baseball usefulness but does it need another stat?  Just stick to the WHIP and other forms of Sabermetrics.  So why does this misleading stat have such a hold on basketball recently?  Because people want to sound smart and well informed.  If you quoted a +/- stat to me when debating the overall usefulness of ever having signed Vitale Potapenko all those years ago you would probably find yourself alone…at the bottom of a river because you should not be allowed to form your own opinions are dangerous to our society.

Read the rest here.