Arroyo is 6-3. Thats not bad height for a point guard. He has decent speed and very good footwork. He is quite capable of sticking like glue to a lot of players, and more importantly he tries 100% always. The guy is pure hustle on D, including on the boards. Most of last year, there was no statisical difference between Billups and Arroyo as far as how many points other teams scored while each player was in the game. It widened a little toward the end of his stint with us, but not that much. And compared to the alternative down in Orlando, Jameer Nelson, Arroyo is very good at D.

Preach. You speakth grand truth.

I think 82games.com has tried to add a lot more statistical data around +/- to create something meaningful.

Personally, I find the 5 man units quite fascinating. The way certain lineups fail (and the coach still plays them) and others where relatively unremarkable players thrive surrounded by certain personalities and attributes.

__________________
To all of my friends, comrades and companions at PF.com

Thank you for another great season!

Agree. The unit based analysis is really interesting.

I do have the feeling that any +/- measure is a better long term than short term analysis. Fifteen games in may not be enough for it to settle down from game by game weirdness.

They also do breakouts of best 2, 3, and 4 man combos as well, which is cool.

Making a Difference: On court vs. off court numbers - NBA - NBCSports.com

OK, I swear I didn't see this article when I created this thread.

It is also interesting that they don't included Darko on their list. They only give 25 out of the 30 teams for some reason. Maybe they feel like he was detracting from their point.

Ok, so the Heat are outscored by their opponent by 3.3 points per 48 minutes when Wade is on the floor. But, they are outscored far worse, by 28 points per 48 minutes when he is off. So he improves the team's differential by 24.3 points when he is on the floor. Given that he is playing 41 minutes a game, basically this is telling us that the Heat stink bigtime.

I guess that's making the best of a bad situation.

dba, I would say that's about right !!

Wait a minute, isn't +/- a single stat that shows how effective a player is when he is on the court? Either this players group is out scoring the opponents group or not?

TDF-

"+" is that stat that you are talking about.

"-" is the stat that shows how good or bad the rest of your team is without that player relative to the competition.

"+/-" combines the two to show how valuable you are to the team.


So if your team loses by 5 points everytime that you play the whole game, but they lose by 20 every time you sit out injured... then your team does 15 points better with you than without you. That is your +/- rating.