If you've been reading this blog for a while you know that I enjoy looking at +|- stats. It's a simplistic measurement of how a team performs when a player is on the court compared to when he's off it. It's not perfect, but it has some meaning. I haven't peaked at the Spurs numbers for this year; I will in a couple minutes. First I want to take a wild stab at the order, from best to worst per 48 minutes. I'm only looking at players with at least 10 MPG.
Parker
Duncan
Ginobili
Barry
Oberto
Elson
Bowen
Udrih
Horry
Finley
So here's a quick explanation for my ranking. Ginobili is struggling, but he always posts high +|- numbers and one of his primary backups, Finley, has been God-awful. Barry is shooting like 90% from 3; that has to be worth something. Oberto gets to play more the starting 5, hence being ranked above Elson. Bowen also gets the benefit of Finley's suckage. Udrih hasn't played that badly, but when's he on the court that means Parker's off it, and Tony's been amazing. Horry and Finley have both sucked donkey balls, but Finley shoots more, thus increasing the efficacy of extreme suckitude.
OK, let's see how I did. On to 82games. These numbers are net for 48 minutes.
Duncan +32.9 (Holy Sweet Mother of Sweet Baby Jesus)
Parker +14.1
Ginobili +10.8
Bowen +6.2
Barry +3.9
Oberto +0.5
Horry -11.6
Elson -12.3
Udrih -14.7
Finley -14.9
I didn't do too bad. Bowen is much higher than I anticipated. In the coming weeks I'll look deeper into the numbers.
That Duncan number is stupid high. Yao is at +21.9. Lebron +28.3, Wade +24.0, Garnett +25.9.
Haslem +47.5. Holy crap. Udonis Haslem has been off the court for 78 minutes this year and the Heat have been outscored by 72 points during that stretch. Wow. There's more. Their offensive eFG% goes up 15.5% when he's on the court. Their defensive eFG% allowed is 15.6% better with him playing. Small sample size and all, but still. Sweet sassy molassy.
Barbosa is +43.7. Not a surprise considering how shitty Marcus Banks is (-29.9). Artest +49.1.
Weird. Carlos Boozer has played 243 minutes, during which the 6-1 Jazz (with a +6.0 scoring differential) have been outscored 12 points. He's been off the court for 92 minutes, during which they outscored their opponents by 54 points. Their starting 5 have actually been outscored this year. Crazy.
I could go through these numbers all day, but in reality it's too early for them to be little more than curiosities at this point.
One last thing to point out. Tony Parker. More specifically Tony Parker's jumper. Last year he shot 55%, causing many "experts" to claim he found a jump shot. I pointed out 49 times during the season and playoffs that he hadn't found a jump shot, rather he took a higher percentage of his shots in the lane and converted a ridiculously high percentage of them. Here were his numbers last year:
51% of attempts were jump shots, with an eFG% of 41.5%. 49% of attempts were close, with an eFG% of 69.9%.
This year? Uh, maybe this Chip Engelland guy knows what he's doing:
74% of attempts are jump shots, with an eFG% of 57.5%. 26% of attempts are close, with an eFG% of 57.7%.
I guess you could say he's settling for jumpers, but he can settle all he wants if he can shoot that well from outside the lane. I will undoubtedly pay very close to these numbers all season.