The + component tells you how the team does when this player is actually on the floor. The - component tells you how they do when that player is on the bench. If you combine them, it is supposed to show your impact. This season, the Magic have outscored their opponents by 64 points while Darko has actually been running around out there doing whatever it is he does.

A big part of the - number though, depends on how good the rest of your team is compared to the opponents. Since the Magic have a good bench and tend to outscore the opponent's bench, then a player like Dwight Howard will not show a big - component, and this will make his +/- not look as impressive. The Piston's starting five last year all showed huge - components because our bench got killed on a regular basis.

If you had a large sample size and the +/- between players on the team are not highly correlated, then you can really be sure that the player with the highest +/- is the most valuable. Since most of the cream has risen to the top on the other teams, it seems to be suggesting that the sample size of 15 games is big enough.

There is a +/- gross and a +/- per game, timeframe, whatever. Darko is also leading in the gross category.

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"I’ll just say this: We’re not talking to teams about their second- or third-best players." Joe Dumars talking about his plan to get other teams' 4th best players.