+/- Player Trios

[ziggy]

http://www.82games.com/trios0708.htm


Player Trio team leaders in 2007-08 (as of 01/31, top trio per team in net plus/minus)
Team
   
            Player1           Player2       Player3         Min      +/-   
ATL    A.Johnson     J.Johnson     Horford    666     +67     
BOS    R.Allen     Pierce     Garnett      1069    +325     
CHA    Felton     Carroll     Richardson      359        +45
CHI    Duhon     Deng     Thomas    86     +54     
CLE    Gibson     James     Ilgauskas    615     +118
DAL    Harris     Jo.Howard     Nowitzki    777     +239
DEN    Iverson     Najera     Camby    453     +148
DET    Billups     Prince     Wallace    988     +238
GSW    Ellis     Jackson     Biedrins    735     +188
HOU    Alston     Battier     Yao    1041     +125
IND    Rush     Dunleavy     Murphy    153     +66
LAC    Maggette     Thomas     Kaman    615     +65
LAL    Bryant     Odom     Bynum             677     +204
MEM     Miller              Warrick     Gasol        145     +52
MIA    Quinn     Davis     O'Neal    128     +29
MIL    Bell     Redd     Mason    47     +42
MIN    McCants     Gomes     Richard    59     +46
NJN    Carter     Jefferson     Magloire    91     +43
NOH    Paul     Stojakovic     Chandler    988     +240
NYK    Robinson     Crawford     Lee    486     +42
ORL    Nelson     Lewis            Howard      933     +136
PHI    Green           Korver     Dalembert    118     +57
PHO     Nash         Marion     Stoudemire    989     +282
POR    Roy     Jones     Outlaw    340     +79     106
SAC    Udrih     Martin     Miller    350     +80
SAS    Parker     Ginobili     Duncan    481     +135
SEA    Szczerbiak     Wilcox     Thomas    109     +57
TOR    Calderon     Parker     Bosh    802     +111
UTA    Williams     Kirilenko     Boozer    1080     +153
WAS    Stevenson     Butler     Jamison    1063     +150

Let's look next at the twenty five leading trios in total plus/minus so far:

Worst Player Trio by team (net plus/minus)
ATL    Childress     M.Williams     Horford    302     -53
BOS    Pierce     Posey              Perkins    83     -47
CHA    McInnis     Richardson     Okafor    598     -124
CHI    Hinrich     Gordon     Wallace    672     -101     Red Alert!
CLE    D.Brown     Pavlovic     Ilgauskas    136     -61
DAL    Stackhouse     Bass     Diop    132     -49
DEN    Carter     Iverson     Camby    734     -49
DET    Murray     Hayes     Maxiell    147     -38
GSW    Ellis     Azubuike     Biedrins    318     -54
HOU    James     McGrady     Yao    127     -51
IND    Granger     Murphy     O'Neal    388     -85
LAC    Knight     Mobley     Kaman    458     -80
LAL    Farmar     Walton     Odom    119     -56
MEM    Miller     Gay     Milicic    625     -151
MIA    Wade     Davis     Haslem    791     -182
MIL    Redd     Yi     Bogut    885     -125
MIN    Telfair     Gomes     Jefferson    744     -179
NJN    Kidd     Jefferson     S.Williams    609     -106
NOH    Pargo     Jackson     Butler    197     -40
NYK    Crawford     Richardson     Curry    708     -197
ORL    Arroyo     Dooling     Foyle    93     -30
PHI    Miller     Iguodala     Evans    984     -108
PHO    Hill     Diaw     Skinner    200     -41
POR    Roy     Webster     Aldridge    852     -87
SAC    Douby     Garcia     Thomas    95     -64
SAS    Vaughn     Finley     Oberto    116     -39
SEA    Watson     Durant     Collison    508     -189
TOR    Calderon     Delfino     Humphries    224     -37
UTA    Brewer     Harpring     Boozer    156     -33
WAS    Mason             McGuire     Blatche    102     -77

So there's some food for thought. Teams with three starter trios in this "hall of shame" might want to consider mixing things up, no?

[Derek Bodner]

So there's some food for thought. Teams with three starter trios in this "hall of shame" might want to consider mixing things up, no?

So you're telling me Reggie Evans should not be a starter?  Shocked, I say.  Shocked.

[westkoast]

I'm suprised to see the Clippers trio so high up considering they have not been playing very well this year as a team.

[WayOutWest]

Having the Suns and Jazz towards the bottom of the list makes me wonder if the upper trios just play on teams with no dept on the bench.  A solid bench should minimize the hit you take from your starters sitting down.

[ziggy]

I'm suprised to see the Clippers trio so high up considering they have not been playing very well this year as a team.

The Clips Trio of Maggette, Thomas, Kaman is + 65 in 615 minutes.  That means that trio is + 5.07 per 48 minutes.  That is the 3rd worst of any team on a 48 minute basis.  Only Atlanta and NYK are worse.

The top 10 on a per 48 minute basis with a minimum of 400 minutes (meaning that trio plays together for about 10 minutes per game at a minimum) are

DEN    Iverson, Najera, Camby  +15.7 per 48 minutes
DAL    Harris, Jo.Howard, Nowitzki  +14.8
BOS    R.Allen, Pierce, Garnett  +14.6
LAL    Bryant, Odom, Bynum  +14.5
PHO    Nash, Marion, Stoudemire  +13.7
SAS    Parker, Ginobili, Duncan   13.5
GSW    Ellis, Jackson, Biedrins   12.3
NOH    Paul, Stojakovic, Chandler   11.7
DET    Billups, Prince, Wallace   11.6
POR    Roy, Jones, Outlaw   11.2

The overall top 8 in +/- per 48 minutes were all trios that played less than 150 minutes together, which is only 3.5 minutes per game.  In other words they could be statistical anomolies.


The worst teams with a minimum of 48 minutes
SEA    Watson    Durant    Collison   17.86
NYK    Crawford, Richardson, Curry   13.36
MEM    Miller, Gay, Milicic   11.6
MIN    Telfair, Gomes, Jefferson   11.55
MIA    Wade, Davis, Haslem   11.04
CHA    McInnis, Richardson, Okafor   9.95
LAC    Knight, Mobley, Kaman   8.38
NJN    Kidd, Jefferson, S.Williams   8.35
CHI    Hinrich, Gordon, Wallace   7.21
MIL    Redd, Yi, Bogut   6.78
PHI    Miller, Iguodala, Evans   5.27
POR    Roy, Webster, Aldridge   4.9
DEN    Carter, Iverson, Camby   3.2

[Reality]

zig has anyone done a seperate Playoff Trios?

[rickortreat]

So there's some food for thought. Teams with three starter trios in this "hall of shame" might want to consider mixing things up, no?

So you're telling me Reggie Evans should not be a starter?  Shocked, I say.  Shocked.

Shocking indeed, but the Sixers seem to play better with Evans coming off the bench.  Even Evans plays better coming off the bench.

It also is allowing Jason Smith and Thadeus Young more opportunities to develop, and they are both continuing to improve.

But these stats are old,  Korver hasn't been with the Sixers for quite some time.  For young teams with uncertain line-ups this stat is somewhat misleading.  This is a stat that takes some longevity to be worthwhile as a comparison between teams, and is less important than others- like the average points scored and allowed for each team- which to me is the gold standard for determining the best team.

Based on the scoring differential stat,  Boston is the best team in the NBA winning by 11.02 points on average per game.  That is significantly better than the next team, Detroit at 7.28.  So all you West Coast fans who think the West is better should recoginize that the top two teams in the league are in the East!  Even in the top 10, the West has 6 of the teams and the East 4. So while the West is tougher and more competitive, this stat says that the Celtics are going to take the finals.

NO is third on the list, scoring 6.42 pts more than their opponents night in and out.  The stat suggests that they are better than the Spurs, the Mavericks and the Suns.

http://www.nba.com/statistics/sortable_team_statistics/sortable1.html#top

This stat is the one to watch, and it is better than the standings for determing the best team.

The Sixers are 19th on that list- at negative 2.0 meaning on average they loose their games by an average of 2.  That's not too far away from being a good team- just a bucket a game difference. One more made free throw by them, and one less made by their opponents and they become a playoff team. 

The Celtics are the team to beat- but I'd like to look more closely at the games they play with legit contenders to see how they match up.  The Spurs are still the best at crunch time and I haven't seen Boston play a game where they and the other team were in it right at the end.

[Derek Bodner]

But these stats are old,  Korver hasn't been with the Sixers for quite some time

Um...

The stats aren't old.  They include ALL team player combinations.  Since Korver at one point played on the Sixers, I'm guessing he's played been on the floor with at least 2 other Sixers at some point this year.

[rickortreat]

But these stats are old,  Korver hasn't been with the Sixers for quite some time

Um...

The stats aren't old.  They include ALL team player combinations.  Since Korver at one point played on the Sixers, I'm guessing he's played been on the floor with at least 2 other Sixers at some point this year.

Yes, But I cannot believe that Korver was part of any triumvirate where that was the best team of three the Sixers could put on the court while he was still on the team.  The second most recent game the Sixers played, where they blew out the Bucks, the top three on the Sixers were Thad Young at + 34, Andre Igoudala at +27 and Louis Williams at +27. 

Of course that was just one game and the Sixers aren't good enough to put up those kinds of numbers against better teams like Orlando last night.  The Sixers lost by 2 points.  I didn't see the game, but it seems from the box score they lost the game by allowing Orlando to shoot better from the floor and make more free throws. The top players were all of the bench this time:  Louis Williams +7, Reggie Evans +5 and Rodney Carney at +4.  Young and Iguoudala who played so well 2 days before were both negative this time, Young went to -7 and Iggy -4.  When you see a bench player in a teams top 3, you know it is because the team looses more than it wins,  and the bench player comes in and helps the team make a little surge on some nights.

I suppose the Sixers still haven't improved enough to take Korver's name off that list, but I expect it to happen before the end of the Season.  Dabods- do you think a healthy Jason Smith would have made enough of a difference for the Sixer to win last night?

[Derek Bodner]

Well, you've consistently underrated Korver's effect on the TEAM for quite a while, so there's no use arguing.

As for your last question, no.  Smith's actually been a disappointment for me this year.  I don't think he helps last night.  In fact, I think last night would have been a terrible matchup for him.  I would expect Thad to be the starter from here on out, even if he is playing out of position.

[rickortreat]

It is only logical that bench players would be the ones with a positive plus minus stat on sub .500 teams.  It's not denigrating Korver to say that he's a sixth man on a loosing team and that's why he came up in the +/- stats.  What is a lot more dissapointing to me is how bad Igoudala and Miller and Evans are on the court together.  I wouldn't have thought they were anywhere near that bad!

The one thing that is clear about the trade is that it has given both Young and Jason Smith more minutes, and to me that is better than having Kyle here.  It's clear from the way Cheeks is using Giricek that he wasn't asking for him to come here! Even last night he couldn't find minutes for him with Smith out.

Although I would like to see a lot more from Smith- I sort of expect a 7 footer to make a real impact, his stats aren't all that bad- 5.1 pts and 3.4 boards in 16 min. is fairly comparable to Dalembert at twice the minutes.  He could do a bit better on the boards, but for a player who's not a big part of the offense he's doing ok out there and has been getting better and more aggressive as time has gone on. 

I didn't have any expectations, so I'm not really disapointed, but sorry to hear you feel that way about a late pick that I think is turning out to be an NBA player.  I think Young will get more of the minutes, but that Cheeks will use Smith where match-ups warrant it.  It seems to me that Cheeks likes what he's seeing out of Jason.

[ziggy]

Rick,
Here is the page for all player pairs on Philly as well as all the individual player +/- stats and winning %.
http://82games.com/0708/0708PHIP.HTM

Here is the page for 5 man units
http://82games.com/0708/0708PHI2.HTM

When you look at the data there a couple of things that jump out.
The lineup of Miller-Iguodala-Carney-Evans-Dalembert, is 1-6, and they would lose by 14.5 points per game.
The lineup of Miller-Green-Iguodala-Young-Dalembert, 0-6 and would lose by 27 points per game
The lineup of Miller-Williams-Green-Iguodala-Dalembert, is 4-8 and would lose by 13 points per game


The most common lineup is Miller-Green-Iguodala-Evans-Dalembert, and that 5 man group has got 44% of the minutes for the top 20 5 man groups, and they are a .500 team.

[rickortreat]

Thanks for those links, ziggy! 

I want to take a long look at this before coming to conclusions.

[rickortreat]

It seems like trading Andre Miller is a good idea.  It seems like adding him to any group diminishes that groups effectiveness.  It also appears that it would have been better for the team if they had traded Miller and kept Korver, strange as that sounds considering the Sixers roster.

Another surprise is that Kevin Ollie seems to have a positive plus minus in spite of having limited floor time.  Shows you what a quality player Kevin is.