Who are the Terps best five on the court?
by cdmterp on Feb 3, 2012 2:58 PM EST
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It's a very slow day here in south Florida so I thought I would take a look at some of the Terps stats. (I'm a stats freak.) I wanted to see who have been the Terps best five players on the court using the +/- stat since ACC play began. I found some of the results were quite surprising.
We all know hockey uses +/- and recently basketball has started to use it, although not officially I don't think. I looked at the past eight games, the seven ACC games plus the Temple game. There is a +/- for when a player is on the court and a +/- when he is on the bench.
Here are my findings. During this time period, the Terps have been outscored by 28 points, going 3-5 in the process.
Berend Weijs +14 on the court, +42 while on the bench = +56
Alex Len +10 on, +38 off = +48
Terrell Stoglin +5 on, +33 off = +38
Sean Mosley -3 on, +25 off = +22
Pe'Shon Howard -15 on, +13 off = -2
James Padgett -16 on, +12 off = -4
Mychal Parker -25 on, +3 off = -22
Ashton Pankey -44 on, -16 off = -60
Nick Faust -55 on, -27 off - -82
I know the stats may be confusing so let me explain. I'll use Terrell as an example. While Stoglin has been on the court in these eight games, the Terps have outscored the opponent by five points. While he has been on the bench, the Terps have been outscored by 33 points, which, in this example, is a positive for Stoglin since he wasn't on the court. I hope that makes it a little less confusing.
There are only three Terps with positives while on the court, Weijs, Stoglin and Len. Only two Terps have negatives while on the bench: Faust and Pankey.
Nick and Ashton's negative numbers are by far the highest on the team. They lose ground while on the court and then watch the Terps make it up while they are on the bench. I know they are both freshman but I was kind of surprised by it.
I wouldn't put a lot of weight into Berend's stats since he plays the fewest minutes of the group.
It looks like our best lineup is Howard and Stoglin in the backcourt, Len at center and Mosley and Padgett up front. Parker, Faust, Pankey and Weijs off the bench.
What do you guys think? Are any of you surprised by these numbers?
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When not fatigued...
Stogs, Faust, Mosley, Weis, Len.
Stogs for scoring, Faust for D and slashing on O, Mosely aka Mr. Everything, Weis until he messes up/fouls uncontrollably, Len until tired.
If O is slacking, put Pe at point, move Stogs to SG, and take out Faust.
Like the Twin Towers effect we get with Len and Weijs...both those guys can swat the ball on D
I hope we go to a substitution pattern that pairs Len with Weijs and than bring in Padgett and Pankey and sub in a way that keeps them all rested.
Also consider things like Weijs has been mainly going in when we are in control
and generally easier games or easier times on the court, while the others have to be on in pressure situations and against the other teams best players
Makes sense
don’t understand why you are making the two numbers additive. Have you seen Patrick Stevens from the Times do similar stuff? You would probably like it / find interesting
yes, why are they additive?
I thought they would be subtractions to find overall value. (value on court) – (Value off court) = total value. I’ll admit though I’m not a stats junkie for basketball so I’m just stating what appears to make sense.
I think you'd get the same result
Let’s use Stogs:
On court: Maryland outscores opponents by 5 points (+5)
On bench: Maryland outscored by opponents by 33 (-33)
The OP converted the second number to a positive (because it shows that we need Stogs in the game). So his formula was (5) + (33) = 38.
Your formula: (+5) – (-33) = 38. When you subtract a negative number, it is basically like adding a positive number.
That only works in the case of being better on the court
If the team does better when you are off the court (+), then it subtracts. The spread as you detailed below makes sense to convert to a positive, but subtracting would still give the same result I think.
For example, Faust and Pankey are clearly not that bad when they are on the court. So if you were to use subtraction in the case of Faust, -55 – (-27) = -28, which is probably more accurate than -82.
I think subtraction may be a better way of measuring the statistics the user provided though. Going by his numbers, we do better when Stoglin is off hte court (33), than on the court (5). While that makes absolutely no sense in Stoglins case, because he carries the team scoring wise, the numbers tell us that the team does better when he is off the court.
The same goes for Faust, we do far worse when he is on the court than when he is off the court.
I’m not sure adding or subtracting the +/- for on and off is really a great measure of anything now that I look at it. I think the +/- of being on the court is a good measure in itself because you are already measuring the value of you being on the court rather than not (the team has scored 5 more points when stoglin is on the court vise off the court).
If you are wanting to measure the overall value of the player, then these statistics suggest that Stoglin is more liability than asset to the team (a +33 when off the court states that Stoglin should be off the court no matter what). That doesn’t appear to be an accurate statistic, because we all know he carries this team.
Sorry for rambling on, just trying to think out the statistic and whether it makes sense to even add/subtract the two +/- values
It makes total sense
When Stoglin is on the court the Terps are basically even with their opponents. When Stoglin is on the bench, the Terps get outscored by their opponent.
Everyone on here is crying that we need a 2nd scorer and this proves it. No one picks up the slack when Stogs is on the bench. All the +/- is confusing, I know.
My point was that the off number isn't correct then by your explanation
If the terps are outscored by there opponents by 33 points when Stoglin is off the court, it should be 33, meaning the team is 33 points worse when stoglin is off the court, since the +/ number is total team points.
oops, not sure how I did that
reads – 33, meaning the team is 33 points worse when stoglin is off the court, since the +/-
It just gives more information
The first number (+/- while on the court) is the traditional +/- number. It lets you see how well the team does while that player is on the floor.
The second number (+/- of the team while the player is on the bench) gives context. It lets you see how well the team plays when that player is on the bench.
For example: Assume player A has a +/- of +15 when he is on the court. But assume the team has a +/- of +45 when that player is off the court.
That information could lead to the conclusion “the team is good when he is on the court, but better when he is off the court.”
Changing that hypo, assume the player has a +15 on the court, and the team is a -10 when he is off the court. That could lead to the conclusion that “the team is good when he is on the court, and bad when he is off the court.”
By changing the second number, you completely change the conclusion.
(Here, the OP counted the “-10” from the second hypo as a positive for the player. By adding +15 and +10 you essentially just get the spread—how much better are we with Player A on the court than off—the answer is +25, or the difference between -10 and +15).
Thanks
that makes sense then using it as the spread to see the total value of being on the court then.
To make this easier to understand
show the actual values of “Off the court” for each guy. You are skipping a step — when people see “Alex Len +10 on, +38 off = +48” they think we’re +10 with him playing, and +38 when he’s on the bench. In reality, we are -38 when he’s not playing, but you’ve turned it to +38 using your flipping method.
Thank you
you explained that better than I did. The off court number is the wrong value, the positives should be negatives and vise versa. The team is 33 points worse off when Stoglin is off hte court, so it should be – 33.
I like numbers, so not trying to knock you, just trying to improve on it
Your statistic is nice, but this is the way I see to improve it.
I think the confusion is in how you came up with the overall number. You took the + and essentially made that the “on court” value and made the “-” and made that the off-court value, but flipped it. When you say off court +/- , I think of the value as how good or bad the team does when that player is off the court. So, when you gave Stoglin a +33, that implied the team scored 33 more points when Stoglin wasn’t on the floor, when in fact the team scored 33 less points. So Terrell Stoglin makes the team 33 points better essentially, so you assigned him a positive value of 33.
I think if you would of stated that the off the court number, a positive number reflected how much worse the team was when the player was off the court, and a negative number reflected how much better the team was when the player was off the court, it would of been easier to understand. But I got you now, nice stats.
This exercise shows you how stats can be turned around any way you want them
All it considers is points for and against when players are either on the floor or on the bench. One dimension of a multidimensional game.
My gut tells me that a combo against UNC may be Weis, Len and Pankey up front to neutralize the UNC height, with Stogs and Mosley doing the scoring.
good point
you can make stats say whatever you want.
If we’re going to combat the bigs from UNC, I’m not sure we want Weijs in the game. Unless he is guarding Henson, I wouldn’t want him touching the floor. I’d rather have padgett in, he is a little more athletic so I think he’d have a better time of it, and have the better chance at the offensive board.
I actually think
This isn’t a “manipulation of stats” issue, as much of a miscommunication over how the stats were calculated.
Further, while I agree that basketball is a multidimensionsal game, “+/-” is a stat that reflects those multiple dimensions. It isn’t like it takes into account only scoring. It takes account of everything that impacts the score of a game—points, rebounding, defense, intangibles, leadership, etc.
The biggest problem with putting too much stock in +/- is the “meaningful minutes” issue. Are people only playing in a blowout against bad teams? If so, that player might have an inflated +/- as opposed to a player logging a ton of minutes against Duke or UNC.
Other than Weijs, I don’t think we have any outliers here (and even his stats shouldn’t be disregarded as a fluke).
by bshock on Feb 4, 2012 1:53 PM EST via mobile up reply actions
I don't think this is manipulation
I think this was a miscommunication of the off the court number being purposely flipped so that you could see the true spread of how much value the player does or does not bring.
There were really no blowouts in these games
FSU beat us by 14 which has been the worst loss. I thought it was a good measure since there are not a lot of garbage minutes.
More importantly, Faust and Pankey have played like freshman and Len hasn’t. This team really needs Stoglin and Mosley. I think these stats just point out the obvious.
Minutes on the bench
I don’t think those can really be factored into a player’s team scoring differential (the +/-).
Assuming a 9 man rotation, when a single member of that rotation is on the bench, there are something like 20 possible 5 player combinations from the remaining 8 that can be on the floor at any given time. Those 20 possible lineup combinations will each have a different point differential versus the opponent. Given the variability in those point differentials, I think its impossible to establish any statistical correlation to the absence of a contribution from the player on the bench.
eh
I think you are over-mathing this one.
I’m sure you’re right as to the number of permutations, but that isn’t reality. One permutation is Len, Weijs, Padgett, Pankey, and Parker. How many mins has that lineup seen?
Besides, all of those permutations have one thing in common: No Player X. If 20 permutations (without Player X) have a negative +/-, and the 12 or so permutations that include Player X have a positive +/-, I don’t think it is a stretch to see a correlation.
by bshock on Feb 4, 2012 7:10 PM EST via mobile up reply actions
Over-mathing?
Yes, with very high probability, and your point about the number of realistic lineups being far less than the number actually possible is absolutely correct.
The problem reminded me of one I encountered as a student a while back where the idea was to maximize the output of a manufacturing system for differing sets of production runs by selecting and sequencing an optimal set of equipment. The analysis in that case could get fairly complex, but I think the problem is generally analogous.
And as I contemplate whether to elaborate further on the subject, it occurs to me that in all likelihood, no one really cares and my time would probably be better spent were I to simply fix another drink and return to channelsurfing.
ugh...engineer?
Yeah, your overthinking it man
What selection and sequence of alcoholic beverages
produced optimal results for you last night? lol
by 1 proud terp on Feb 5, 2012 10:33 AM EST up reply actions
I go with Jack and Sprite, with a cherry
And 3 hot babes in the production line, plus another 2 to get a glass and fill with ice. lol.
Maybe another to shake, not stir. And another to insert a straw. And another to serve it to you. Wow, that’s efficiency.
Last night was a faulire
Results not optimal. Back to the drawing board.
If my math is correct
+6 in the 2A = 1 NC
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