I’ve finally found the time to complete the (unadjusted) plus/minus calculations for the running 09/10 Euroleague season. You find the complete sortable list here. The most glaring weakness of plus/minus in the Euroleague is obvious: With the regular season lasting only ten games (eight teams are eliminated after the regular season), Top16 lasting another six games (another eight teams eliminated) and a short best-of-five quarter final series following, even the busiest club will have played only 21 games max prior to the Final Four. Too bad that plus/minus is a category that needs a large sample size to allow conclusions.
Further obstacles of unadjusted plus/minus: The tournament structure (regular season, Top16, quarter finals, Final Four) makes it difficult for e.g. midseason (post-regular season) additions like Marko Jaric and Ante Tomic in Madrid to get on the oncourt offensive (and defensive) rating level of their teammates. Real had its fair share of blowout victories versus smaller teams in the regular season, whereas they faced much tougher opposition in Top16. That makes Tomic’s pretty average plus/minus the more surprising, considering he’s played the lion share of his minutes against the likes of Regal FC Barcelona, Maccabi Tel Aviv and Montepaschi Siena, whereas his teammates were blowing out EWE Baskets Oldenburg by a 56-point-margin in the regular season. I think the least we should do before reading too much into the ratings is taking a look at who opponents and backups/teammates were. If there’s a clear structure within a team (for example, a team having two centers that are only subbing in for each other and never spend time on the floor together) the one player’s ratings will be as good as his teammate’s ratings are bad, or vice versa. However, such cases are rare in the Euroleague. Lawrence Roberts/Branislav Dekic and Terrell McIntyre/Nikolaos Zisis come close.
