I thought his post illustrated that he both understands stats and the importance of sample size, to be honest....though I'm not sure everyone here really understands the relationship of those well.
Yes, SteveF has shown all year that he's got a very sharp eye for stats, and tracks stuff I don't even know exists. I pay pretty close attention when he chimes in on something.
I read tims' post as a snipe about the small sample size rant from the other day. But, just as you say, SteveF's post shows a nuanced view of it.
I think +/- and/or on/off are pretty useful after 300-400 games or so. Well, useful for fans who want to have some sense of a quality of a player without having watched all the games, or at least to lead one to wonder why a purportedly good player does so poorly on impact metrics.
Derrick White is -25.4 on/off per 100 possessions according to pbpstats.com over these 6 games. If having a good +/- or on/off is evidence of a player being good, does that mean Derrick White has actually sucked in these 6 games?
I assume your question here is somewhat rhetorical, since you acknowledged the matter of sample size upfront. But to the extent it's not...
Derrick White has 49 playoff games for Boston across 3 seasons - which I'd consider enough sample size to be worth discussing, YMMV. But in those, he has a
-8.3 on/off per 100. -25 is clearly a SSS fluke, but if the real number is closer to -8, or even -3 for that matter, that certainly is surprising given his emerging rep.
Now, a few things come to mind, none of them definitive for me:
1) He's playing against the starters now. Maybe a lot of the big runs we go on are when our bench is beating up the opposing bench.
2) His raw +/- has gone from +1/+2 on his first two seasons of playoffs here, to +10.5 in the 6 games so far this spring. But, of course, there's the -25 on/off. So, it is both true that he has been on the court when we have done
relatively less well, and we've done better when he's been sitting... but also true that when he's on the court we roll the opposition pretty good regardless. Hard to be sure which matters more, or which says more.
3) Maybe he's gambling a bit for his blocks and steals and transition plays, and is letting the team get burnt a bit as a result. I dunno, anything's possible </KG>. But we know it's not from him missing a bunch of shots. So maybe it's that his
teammates are missing a bunch of shots when he's out there, just by coincidence.
4) Or maybe it's just a bad stat where the noise is swamping the signal, even after 49 playoff games. I wouldn't think so, but it's a possibility.
It's a curious anomaly, that's for sure.