Raw plus/minus for 93-94, 94-95, 95-96 seasons

[Doctor MJ]

We now have 10 years (1994-2003) of Plus/Minus data for Stockton and Malone

Code: Select all

   Malone   Stockton
MP    29246   24585
+/-   +4496   +4483
On     8.2   9.7
Off   -2.1   -1.3
Net   10.3   11.0

Malone outscored Stockton by a mere 13 points over that span but outplayed Stockton by 4661 MP so Stockton gets the slight overall lead in Net Plus/Minus. We have 10 years of data and we still don't have enough to make a conclusion on the Stockton vs Malone debate

Well, I'm all for saying we don't have enough, but when I see that comparison it seems to imply that it was basically even the whole time. It wasn't though. Part of what left us so intrigued with Stockton is that he was getting more impressive numbers than Malone, and the big question was how that would look if we went deeper into the past. And the answer is that with just 3 additional years of data, Malone's already taken the lead in raw +/-.

While I agree that I still want more data, my big question was whether Stockton would maintain this edge when playing big minutes and being compared to Malone in his prime. The answer to this point at least is no. That Stockton's edge was the product of the two players aging, Stockton handling it better, and Malone being asked to do more while Stockton was able to pick his fight a bit more.

[Doctor MJ]

David Robinson 3 Year Average from 1994-96

On Court: +10.3
Off Court: -8.5
On/Off: +18.8

This should surprise exactly no one.

One of the all time underrated players.

Yeah, it's looking to me like Robinson in the regular season was just simply the better player...which is of course what all other stats always said. That still leaves Hakeem's beautiful playoffs especially at the peak, but sometimes I wonder if that should not be enough to win the comaprison.

(btw, just mistyped "comparison", and I think that's the most badass typo word I've ever seen.)

[tsherkin]

"Comaprison," I like it.

Robinson was such a different animal in the RS, I'd love to see his splits versus different tiers of defense compared to someone like Olajuwon. He was just totally different in the playoffs. Still good, but asked to score like a wing without the abilty to back it up. Malone-ish, really, an error more the result of team management than his own issues, given how few dominant playoff volume scorers that size have existed.

[colts18]

Well, I'm all for saying we don't have enough, but when I see that comparison it seems to imply that it was basically even the whole time. It wasn't though. Part of what left us so intrigued with Stockton is that he was getting more impressive numbers than Malone, and the big question was how that would look if we went deeper into the past. And the answer is that with just 3 additional years of data, Malone's already taken the lead in raw +/-.

While I agree that I still want more data, my big question was whether Stockton would maintain this edge when playing big minutes and being compared to Malone in his prime. The answer to this point at least is no. That Stockton's edge was the product of the two players aging, Stockton handling it better, and Malone being asked to do more while Stockton was able to pick his fight a bit more.

I disagree with that. We have RAPM data from 97-00 which was still Malone's prime (and peak). He finished in the top 4 of MVP voting those years.

Average RAPM rating from 97-00
Stockton: +5.13
Malone: +4.61

The data does suggest that Malone was the offensive catalyst of the duo while Stockton was a better defender. Malone had a +5 offense (-0.40 defense) RAPM while Stockton was balanced at +2.90 offense (+2.23 defense).

Malone has the plus/minus advantage in 94 and 95 (Stockton has the advantage in 96).

It's still a close comparison overall. I think that Malone was the better player, but I don't think it was by a wide margin. Every time we get more data, Stockton looks better in it.


We do have plus/minus data for Malone's peak (97-99) but unfortunately we don't have any data on Stockton's peak (88-90). It wouldn't surprise me to see that ball dominant Stockton comes out less favorably in plus/minus stats/RAPM.

[colts18]

"Comaprison," I like it.

Robinson was such a different animal in the RS, I'd love to see his splits versus different tiers of defense compared to someone like Olajuwon. He was just totally different in the playoffs. Still good, but asked to score like a wing without the abilty to back it up. Malone-ish, really, an error more the result of team management than his own issues, given how few dominant playoff volume scorers that size have existed.

[tsherkin]

I meant player performance versus DRTG thresholds, but thanks colts!

[colts18]

I meant player performance versus DRTG thresholds, but thanks colts!

I believe that chart does what you are asking for. Its performance vs defenses under 103 D rating (good defenses) and performance vs defenses above 107 D rating (bad)

[tsherkin]

I meant player performance versus DRTG thresholds, but thanks colts!

I believe that chart does what you are asking for. Its performance vs defenses under 103 D rating (good defenses) and performance vs defenses above 107 D rating (bad)

So it does!

Over tired, I guess; totally missed the defense column and thought it was H2H data!!!

[drza]

I'm still (selfishly) hoping someone has the time to go through and make the net on/off scores for the whole years of '95 and '96 the way they did for '94. But in the meantime, some of my thoughts so far:

Robinson: He's been mentioned, and it was fully expected, but it's great to see that he does have exactly the +/- presence we'd have expected. His 94 (+19.9 per 100) and 95 (+19.8) peak is right up near the best of what we've seen so far from '94 - '14, which is what we all thought. The eye test said that (in the regular season at least) Robinson was doing ridiculous things; the box score stats agreed; so it's great to see that +/- is telling the same story. I really wish we had more postseason +/- numbers for him, because his playoffs have become so conversation-worthy in themselves that I'd like to have more to work with. But in the regular season, more confirmation that he is who we THOUGHT he was.

Pippen: This 3-year window provides a very interesting test environment for Pippen. We have the one season completely without Jordan, the one mainly without Jordan until the end, and then the record-setting '96 season with MJ back full time. I was curious how this might have affected Pippen's +/- scores. The raw would obviously change with the quality of the team, but how would the on/off net +/- change? Would the '94 team depend more on Pippen and thus inflate his scores? Would Jordan's presence allow Pippen to play more to his strengths and thus increase the scores? Well, no full answers of course, but this is what the data says for those years:

'94: Pippen on/off + 7.0 per 100 possessions
'95: Pippen on/off +12.3
'96: Pippen on/off +11.8

Interestingly, there doesn't seem to be a huge Jordan effect here. Pippen's on/off +/- with not much Jordan in '95 is almost exactly the same as his '96 on/off with full-time Jordan. That might argue to me that Pippen's impact might be reasonably independent of Jordan. And then, what to make of '94? Not a huge difference, but it's clearly the lowest of the 3 years...in the year where I'd have expected that Pippen was carrying the heaviest load. I'm still processing this, but I find it interesting.

Jordan: While MJ didn't seem to have a huge affect on Pippen's on/off +/-, of course he had a huge impact on the team's "+" capability. If we estimate the Bulls with Pip but no MJ over 94 and 95 as a +6.9 (Pip's on-court +/- was +5.5 in '94 and +8.2 in '95, averages about +6.9), then Jordan lifting them to a +16.7 with him on the court is an amazing amount of lift. His on/off +/- isn't as high as Robinson's because the Bulls weren't trash without him the way that the Spurs were without Robinson. But this makes me think that if we had RAPM scores for this era, which do more to isolate the individual from the team, MJ's RAPM might be higher than Robinson's. It'd be cool to see

I have more thoughts...but I also have a wife, who's calling me over, so I'll cut this short for now

[colts18]

I'm still (selfishly) hoping someone has the time to go through and make the net on/off scores for the whole years of '95 and '96 the way they did for '94. But in the meantime, some of my thoughts so far:

Robinson: He's been mentioned, and it was fully expected, but it's great to see that he does have exactly the +/- presence we'd have expected. His 94 (+19.9 per 100) and 95 (+19.8) peak is right up near the best of what we've seen so far from '94 - '14, which is what we all thought. The eye test said that (in the regular season at least) Robinson was doing ridiculous things; the box score stats agreed; so it's great to see that +/- is telling the same story. I really wish we had more postseason +/- numbers for him, because his playoffs have become so conversation-worthy in themselves that I'd like to have more to work with. But in the regular season, more confirmation that he is who we THOUGHT he was.

Here are the top on court plus/minus in the playoffs from 97-14, min. 30 MPG and 10 GP (using NBA.com):

1. 99 Robinson +19.5
2. 10 Lewis +16.3
3. 01 Kobe +15.2
4. 01 Shaq +14.1
5. 12 Duncan +13.8
6. 14 Leonard +13.4
7. 09 Odom +13.2
8. 09 Varejao +12.3


I can't stress to you how much of an outlier that 99 Robinson playoffs was. He completely demolished it in the plus/minus stats (was a +35 Net plus/minus). He was +19.5 on court in the 99 playoffs while Duncan was +9.6, a huge gap for 2 players who played on the same team and played 35+ MPG. Robinson was +8.8 (Duncan +4.0) in the 98 playoffs too.

In 97 and 98, MJ was just +9.3 both seasons. Shaq never touched anywhere near +19.5. Neither did Duncan, KG, or Dirk. I would bet good money that it is one of the best in NBA history.


Robinson's plus/minus for the 98-00 playoffs:
on court: +12.66, 89.27 D rating
off court: -17.47, 102.52 D rating
Net: +30.12 plus/minus, -13.25 D rating impact

The Spurs had an absurd 86 D rating with him on the court in the 99 playoffs.

[drza]

I'm still (selfishly) hoping someone has the time to go through and make the net on/off scores for the whole years of '95 and '96 the way they did for '94. But in the meantime, some of my thoughts so far:

Robinson: He's been mentioned, and it was fully expected, but it's great to see that he does have exactly the +/- presence we'd have expected. His 94 (+19.9 per 100) and 95 (+19.8) peak is right up near the best of what we've seen so far from '94 - '14, which is what we all thought. The eye test said that (in the regular season at least) Robinson was doing ridiculous things; the box score stats agreed; so it's great to see that +/- is telling the same story. I really wish we had more postseason +/- numbers for him, because his playoffs have become so conversation-worthy in themselves that I'd like to have more to work with. But in the regular season, more confirmation that he is who we THOUGHT he was.

Here are the top on court plus/minus in the playoffs from 97-14, min. 30 MPG and 10 GP (using NBA.com):

1. 99 Robinson +19.5
2. 10 Lewis +16.3
3. 01 Kobe +15.2
4. 01 Shaq +14.1
5. 12 Duncan +13.8
6. 14 Leonard +13.4
7. 09 Odom +13.2
8. 09 Varejao +12.3


I can't stress to you how much of an outlier that 99 Robinson playoffs was. He completely demolished it in the plus/minus stats (was a +35 Net plus/minus). He was +19.5 on court in the 99 playoffs while Duncan was +9.6, a huge gap for 2 players who played on the same team and played 35+ MPG. Robinson was +8.8 (Duncan +4.0) in the 98 playoffs too.

In 97 and 98, MJ was just +9.3 both seasons. Shaq never touched anywhere near +19.5. Neither did Duncan, KG, or Dirk. I would bet good money that it is one of the best in NBA history.


Robinson's plus/minus for the 98-00 playoffs:
on court: +12.66, 89.27 D rating
off court: -17.47, 102.52 D rating
Net: +30.12 plus/minus, -13.25 D rating impact

The Spurs had an absurd 86 D rating with him on the court in the 99 playoffs.

I appreciate those numbers, no doubt. But I knew that he did well in his role next to Duncan, as the defensive general that gave good support on offense. And I remembered seeing (you, I believe) post that his numbers were better than Duncan's in that stretch. And that could be worth more convo, as well.

But I really meant playoff +/- for Robinson in the pre-Duncan years, which I'm not sure anyone has...unless Pollack's got more treasures for us, or if that league-held info is still around in some boxes somewhere. But the Robinson/Hakeem dynamic is so interesting because Robinson so completely dominated Hakeem in the regular season in pretty much any style of analysis with Robinson as one of the best ever...but according to the box scores, the featured match-ups and everyone's eye test, Hakeem's playoffs seemed to mirror Robinson's regular seasons, while Robinson's playoffs are just an enigma. Kaima and crew do such a good job painting Robinson as completely inept in the playoffs at his peak pre-Duncan, especially against top competition...I still don't fully believe it, but have also never been able to fully debunk it. I'd like some non-boxscore stuff to help me characterize it further.

[penbeast0]

...

Here are the top on court plus/minus in the playoffs from 97-14, min. 30 MPG and 10 GP (using NBA.com):

1. 99 Robinson +19.5
2. 10 Lewis +16.3
3. 01 Kobe +15.2
4. 01 Shaq +14.1
5. 12 Duncan +13.8
6. 14 Leonard +13.4
7. 09 Odom +13.2
8. 09 Varejao +12.3


I can't stress to you how much of an outlier that 99 Robinson playoffs was. He completely demolished it in the plus/minus stats (was a +35 Net plus/minus). He was +19.5 on court in the 99 playoffs while Duncan was +9.6, a huge gap for 2 players who played on the same team and played 35+ MPG. Robinson was +8.8 (Duncan +4.0) in the 98 playoffs too.

In 97 and 98, MJ was just +9.3 both seasons. Shaq never touched anywhere near +19.5. Neither did Duncan, KG, or Dirk. I would bet good money that it is one of the best in NBA history.


Robinson's plus/minus for the 98-00 playoffs:
on court: +12.66, 89.27 D rating
off court: -17.47, 102.52 D rating
Net: +30.12 plus/minus, -13.25 D rating impact

The Spurs had an absurd 86 D rating with him on the court in the 99 playoffs.

I appreciate those numbers, no doubt. But I knew that he did well in his role next to Duncan, as the defensive general that gave good support on offense. And I remembered seeing (you, I believe) post that his numbers were better than Duncan's in that stretch. And that could be worth more convo, as well.

...

I'm not sure you are on the same page here. There is a huge gap between "I knew he did well in his role" and "This may be the greatest playoff run of all time." Colts18 is trying to make a point here and you seem to be blowing it off as no big deal.

[drza]

...

Here are the top on court plus/minus in the playoffs from 97-14, min. 30 MPG and 10 GP (using NBA.com):

1. 99 Robinson +19.5
2. 10 Lewis +16.3
3. 01 Kobe +15.2
4. 01 Shaq +14.1
5. 12 Duncan +13.8
6. 14 Leonard +13.4
7. 09 Odom +13.2
8. 09 Varejao +12.3


I can't stress to you how much of an outlier that 99 Robinson playoffs was. He completely demolished it in the plus/minus stats (was a +35 Net plus/minus). He was +19.5 on court in the 99 playoffs while Duncan was +9.6, a huge gap for 2 players who played on the same team and played 35+ MPG. Robinson was +8.8 (Duncan +4.0) in the 98 playoffs too.

In 97 and 98, MJ was just +9.3 both seasons. Shaq never touched anywhere near +19.5. Neither did Duncan, KG, or Dirk. I would bet good money that it is one of the best in NBA history.


Robinson's plus/minus for the 98-00 playoffs:
on court: +12.66, 89.27 D rating
off court: -17.47, 102.52 D rating
Net: +30.12 plus/minus, -13.25 D rating impact

The Spurs had an absurd 86 D rating with him on the court in the 99 playoffs.

I appreciate those numbers, no doubt. But I knew that he did well in his role next to Duncan, as the defensive general that gave good support on offense. And I remembered seeing (you, I believe) post that his numbers were better than Duncan's in that stretch. And that could be worth more convo, as well.

...

I'm not sure you are on the same page here. There is a huge gap between "I knew he did well in his role" and "This may be the greatest playoff run of all time." Colts18 is trying to make a point here and you seem to be blowing it off as no big deal.

No, we definitely weren't on the same page there, which was the point of my 2nd paragraph. In the post of mine he was responding to, I was talking about the time when Robinson was at his peak pre-Duncan. I'm not blowing off his Duncan years, I'm saying that they aren't what I was talking about at this time (and I also noted that the Robinson/Duncan years are worth their own conversation).

To spend a quick minute on the Duncan era Robinson, I'd need to look into it more. For instance, Duncan's +9 on-court in 1999 is still pretty high, and he played 22% more minutes than Robinson. Whose to say that the squad wasn't ridiculous with both on-court, then just held their own when either was off the court? Since Duncan played a lot more minutes without Robinson than vice versa, might the +/- scores be an indication of that?

On the other hand, maybe Robinson really was that valuable in those playoffs. He was right at the top of the league in defensive RAPM in those seasons, so it makes sense that he could be having a monster defensive impact in the playoffs as well. He was clearly moving the needle in a very positive way in those playoffs, no minimization at all. But since the playoffs are relatively a small sample size, I really like to look to see whether trends happen repeatedly over different circumstances and multiple years. Which brings me full circle to my original thought...I really would like to see Robinson's postseason +/- numbers from the pre-Duncan era, as they would help me put both his regular season numbers in the pre-Duncan years and also his postseason numbers in the Duncan years into better perspective.

[Texas Chuck]

Can't say I don't feel a sense of vindication on Admiral.

[G35]

I'm still (selfishly) hoping someone has the time to go through and make the net on/off scores for the whole years of '95 and '96 the way they did for '94. But in the meantime, some of my thoughts so far:

Robinson: He's been mentioned, and it was fully expected, but it's great to see that he does have exactly the +/- presence we'd have expected. His 94 (+19.9 per 100) and 95 (+19.8) peak is right up near the best of what we've seen so far from '94 - '14, which is what we all thought. The eye test said that (in the regular season at least) Robinson was doing ridiculous things; the box score stats agreed; so it's great to see that +/- is telling the same story. I really wish we had more postseason +/- numbers for him, because his playoffs have become so conversation-worthy in themselves that I'd like to have more to work with. But in the regular season, more confirmation that he is who we THOUGHT he was.

Here are the top on court plus/minus in the playoffs from 97-14, min. 30 MPG and 10 GP (using NBA.com):

1. 99 Robinson +19.5
2. 10 Lewis +16.3
3. 01 Kobe +15.2
4. 01 Shaq +14.1
5. 12 Duncan +13.8
6. 14 Leonard +13.4
7. 09 Odom +13.2
8. 09 Varejao +12.3


I can't stress to you how much of an outlier that 99 Robinson playoffs was. He completely demolished it in the plus/minus stats (was a +35 Net plus/minus). He was +19.5 on court in the 99 playoffs while Duncan was +9.6, a huge gap for 2 players who played on the same team and played 35+ MPG. Robinson was +8.8 (Duncan +4.0) in the 98 playoffs too.

In 97 and 98, MJ was just +9.3 both seasons. Shaq never touched anywhere near +19.5. Neither did Duncan, KG, or Dirk. I would bet good money that it is one of the best in NBA history.


Robinson's plus/minus for the 98-00 playoffs:
on court: +12.66, 89.27 D rating
off court: -17.47, 102.52 D rating
Net: +30.12 plus/minus, -13.25 D rating impact

The Spurs had an absurd 86 D rating with him on the court in the 99 playoffs.

Well first thing I have to say is colts18 is statistical monster, and from what I have seen he seems to be neutral when providing stats (which I like).

Second, for all the people around when David was playing and read the basketball magazines/articles, Robinson was the statistical leader almost the moment he stepped on the court. I remember reading about him winning the IBM award year after year after year for being the biggest contributor statistically to his team. I would wonder when the Spurs were going to get him some help and he would not be so much of a one man team.

Whenever I see a metric, I can see DRob being at, or in the top 3 during the regular season. He carried those Spurs teams to some really good regular season records. He was able to position the Spurs to have a more favorable matchup in the playoff's. Unlike another statistical monster, Garnett who only seemed to have statistics that support him individually; Robinson not only looked good as an individual, he made his team look good.

Yet, in the playoff's reality set in and teams were able to neutralize Robinson because his teams generally over achieved in the regular season......

[G35]

Can't say I don't feel a sense of vindication on Admiral.

For whatever reason, the influential powers on this board do not like Robinson, so even when the stats support him, narratives will bring him down.....

[lorak]

Here's spreadsheet with all raw plus minus and on/off/net per100 from '94 to '14 season + 76ers players since '88 season: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

Important notes:

- data until '96 is obviously from fpliii and that includes all players from '96 + '95 seasons and with minimum 750 minutes played from '94 (with two expections: Moses Malone and S. Green).

- fpliii's screenshots from '94 don't have several players (or I missed them, keep in mind human factor might played role here and caused some errors) who played at least 750 minutes that season:

Spoiler:

Byron Scott
Charles Jones
Christian Laettner
Chuck Person
Doug West
Isaiah Rider
Keith Jennings
Kendall Gill
Kenny Smith
Mike Brown
Negele Knight
Sherman Douglas
Tellis Frank

- raw +/- data from '97 to '00 is from NBA.com, only players with minimum 750 minutes played. Very important note: if someone from that period changed team during the season then his on/off/net is wrong, because NBA.com lists such player with last team's name he played during that season and calculations were done automatically, so when program "saw" team name he calculated on/off/net in comparison to that team numbers - what is obviously wrong in such case, when player switched teams. Fixing that mistake is a little bit more work, so I left it for now the way it is (that's also reason why players who switched teams during other seasons don't have on/off/net calculated).

- since '01 data is from basketball-reference, only players with minimum 750 minutes played.

- of course since '97 we have more detailed data than only raw +/-, so we know exactly how many possessions team played with given player off the floor. However, for the sake of consistency I calculated on/off/net the same way for all season as for '88-'96, so for example '09 LeBron's on/off/net numbers are little bit different than the ones listed on b-r.

[ElGee]

I've added 1995. Simply don't have time to do 96 for at least another week unless someone else can do the data entry for me. (To do this, you have to grab the players from basketball-reference and put them in a column in a spreadsheet and in the next column enter their raw +/- from the Pollack book. Took me nearly an hour now that Pollack is including all players.)

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/ ... sp=sharing

95 Players that stand out to me:
Blaylock
Mourning (again)
Pippen
Hakeem
Ewing
Richmond

Worth noting:
-Miller with a non-standout season...his first in this retrospective?
-Vlade Divac...hmmm
-I refuse to believe Marty Conlon helped the Bucks
-Magic with lots of collinearity, playing their big lineup together it looks like

As great as Robinson looks, I do consider his number also to be inflated a bit by what looks like lineup grouping. While he looks like the key guy out of Elliot, Johnson and Rodman (as expected) the Spurs rotations still look slanted toward that four playing a lot together (the +10 "on" numbers) and the huge divide between those players and their 5 through 8 in the rotation. With that said, I still consider Robinson to be perhaps the standout in the league based on this new information, but the chasm between him and the other elite players is perhaps overstated slightly.

Malone beats Stockton again. Same issue with the Jazz rotations though -- can't say I'm overly excited when I see that in non adjusted or non-parsed +/- results. It's not that it's a big problem for a run like Malone or Robinson in 95, but I don't have the same confidence in it as say, Hakeem in 1994 or of course, the Jewel of on/off, 2003 Garnett, where, without lineup adjustments, it's hard to come up with an explanation for how the player is not doing massive carrying.

[Doctor MJ]

95 Players that stand out to me:
Blaylock

Mookie continues to have WTF level numbers. He had it in the late '90s RAPM, and he seems to still have it hear. It's definitely a cognitive dissonance moment for me, because it just feels like it has to be inflated somehow. It's one thing to see some of Stockton's numbers and say "See he was really legit", but I don't know if I've seen one thread on the board focused on Mookie in all the time I've been here. He was basically forgotten other than his fun name.

[Dipper 13]

Mookie

He was on the all NBA defensive team for 6 consecutive seasons, and the other first team guard alongside Payton during Jordan's baseball years.