Crow :

Anonymous :has a + .500 team ever had a better road than home record?

In the last 5 years the 06-07 Pistons and 07-08 Magic did it. Several others have been equal including the 2004-5 Sonics when they won 52.

Well done, Crow. I knew I could count on you!

Anonymous :
has a + .500 team ever had a better road than home record?

In the last 5 years the 06-07 Pistons and 07-08 Magic did it. Several others have been equal including the 2004-5 Sonics when they won 52.

Nowitzki, Gasol, CP3, Stephen Jackson…those are special players. As long as the bar is not lowered in such a way as to include anyone, then by the very nature of statistics, the exclusion of all players “below” the “one of only’s” signals that they are “better than most” players across the board. Doesn’t it, by the very nature of statistics?

And I’m with you on the +/- normalization aspect, but you said ANY +/-. :) I mean come on, you know I had to nit pick you on that one!

Plus I still think your “certainly have their growing pains” comment sums up our different views on Green: I still believe he is in the midst of learning how to play as a PF since he played his ENTIRE rookie season as a SF and the first 13 games of his sophomore season (95 games; not to mention high school and college games at SF) versus playing at the PF for 69 games during his sophomore season and now 17 games into his third year (86 games).

Pretty much, he’s Russell Westbrook’s transitioning to PG from SG through high school and college, only as a PF at the NBA level. But RW’s transition is considered and somewhat justified, whereas Green’s is not. Do you see what I mean?

Jeff Green is way below average with assists, and has been his whole career. He’s 32nd among qualifying PF’s for assists per 48 minutes. He’s 9th in turnovers.

He is above average at free throw shooting and three point percentage.

You don’t parse +/- data that way. It’s called +/- because you look at what’s happening when the player is on the court and when he is off. The data is meaningless if you’re only looking at wins because obviously if you’re a starter playing 70%+ total available minutes you’re probably going to end up with a nice figure there.

Jeff Green is currently -17.9 points per 100 possessions. This means that for every 100 possessions that he is in the game, the other team is scoring almost 18 more points than us. That’s really bad, and does suggest that the team is better when he is not on the court. His other statistics would also demonstrate that, as he is below average in most categories relative to other NBA power forwards.

Also, as a minor note, even if you accept the bias of your +/- interpretation, you cannot average the results as you have done before normalizing the minutes played.

The main reason the Thunder have a winning record this year is Kevin Durant, and to a lesser extent Thabo Sefolosha, Russell Westbrook, and James Harden. Those players are doing a lot of things well, certainly have their growing pains and whatnot, but generally perform well relative to their position(s) in several key categories.

The ‘one of nine players’ thing is a popular device used to fit any player into some other group that makes them look good. If the reporter wants to make a player look good, he’ll find a few criteria and baselines where he’s grouped with some good company. One of the criteria is always something like steals or blocks, because you can really make the data fuzzy. As an example, if I lower the assist and steal criteria by .5 we get a list of 22 players. If I add a critera of 1 BPG, Jeff Green vanishes off the list. Obviously, the impact of .5 assits, .5 steals, or .5 blocks (what Jeff Green would need to get 1 block per game last year) isn’t that big a deal.

Did you know Jeff Green was one of three players last year (Nowitzki, Gasol) to average more than 16 points, 6 rebounds, 2 assists, 1 steal, shoot more than 35% from three point range, and turn the ball over less than 2.5 times?

Did you know Russell Westbrook was one of three players (Chris Paul, Steven Jackson) to average more than 15 points, 5 assists, 4.5 rebounds, 1.3 steals, and 80% from the FT line last year?

Confirmation bias!

Try again?

And I’m definitely with you on offensive efficiency, but to say he’s not benefiting the team when he’s out there is just crazy. Through the first five games, Jeff Green was doing more for the team than almost any other player across the board because not everything a player does to contribute to a victory can be seen in a box score.

And regarding his +/-’s, I think you should take a look at his results in each of the Thunder’s victories: +19 (Sacramento), +5 (Detroit, the highest + of the starter’s that game), +15 (Orlando), +7 (Clippers, only starter in the + category), -9 (San Antonio), -1 (Miami), +17 (Washington), +17 (Utah), +24 (Milwaukee). For a combined average of +10.44 in each of the Thunder’s wins this season.

But yeah, he’s not contributing at all and not benefiting the team in ANY of the +/- numbers people can choose to look at.

Not only is your assertion that the Thunder “generally play worse when Jeff Green is on the court” completely the OPPOSITE, but he’s actually one of the main reasons the Thunder have a winning record this year (if we’re going to go off of +/-, no matter how much I dislike the statistic itself).

Oh, and the “one of nine players” didn’t come from me, it came from Darnell Mayberry and the rest of the Associated Press that covers the NBA: http://newsok.com/jeff-green-is-the-thunder-forward-ready-to-be-the-hybrid-of-all-hybrids/article/3410676?custom_click=lead_story_photo