+ / -

In youth sports, the subjective qualities of an athlete (attitude, effort, teamwork, sportsmanship) are more important than the objective ones (points, wins/losses, etc).  The subjective qualities are difficult to measure by definition.  This post is about an objective way to measure your players.  Rather than focus on outright wins and losses, I like to use a different measure.

I am a big fan of using the +/- (plus/minus) statistic in basketball.  It is more commonly associated with hockey, but I think it applies well to basketball.  By combining both offensive scoring and defensive efficiency, it is an objective measure of the athlete's performance.

I use this statistic as my main evaluation tool for my team's performance in games.  I evaluate the +/- of each individual athlete and each combination of athletes (pairs, trios, quads and full sets).  I adjust the statistic for the amount of time the athlete or combination have played.  Also, I evaluate these results as compared to the expected result.  For example, if Player A played 16 minutes of a 32 minute game and finished +3, that's good.  If we won the game by 20 points, I would expect them to be +10 (50% playing time * 20point win), which would indicate they underperformed in comparison to the team.  This comparison technique creates a ranking of the players on the team.  Over the course of many games in a season, this statistic is a very strong measure of each player.  Over a small sample of games or individual games, the statistic is highly influenced by the combinations of teammates on the court and the combination of opponents.  Making decisions based on a small sample is not advised.

This statistic is possible because I diligently track playing time and the team scoring during each shift.  The person that does the scoring is less important to me, though it is tracked by the standard scorebook.  I will acknowledge the top scorers during the season, but the biggest praise each week and for the year, is for the players that have the best +/-.  Those players had the biggest positive impact on the outcomes in the game.

Which stats do you focus on?