Kevin Durant Cares Not for Your Stats

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• Z Posted: Oct.12 at 10:51 am
  So analysts can’t pick his game apart because he works hard?

• Gumdrop Posted: Oct.12 at 10:55 am
  TrueHoop just ran something about Durant’s +/-, stupid fans probably picked up on it to mean that he’s not valuable to the Thunder, and Kevin gets annoyed. That’s your story folks.

• Gerard Himself Posted: Oct.12 at 11:17 am
  I don’t really know what to think of those +/- stats. To be honest, most of the time I don’t pay attention to stuff like that. My guess is that Thunder fans (still sounds weird to me) are more than happy watching Durant suit up for them.

• Lucas Posted: Oct.12 at 11:20 am
  I read that article. It was very convincing but I just can’t beleive it. After watching Durant at the end of last season, that guy is a team player. No doubt in my mind.

• tavoris Posted: Oct.12 at 11:28 am
  bout time somebody said it. Good look, Durant.

• NUPE Posted: Oct.12 at 11:45 am
  The article actually is balanced in that yes KD’s +/- is horrible, but also ‘blames’ his supporting cast for not know how to make decisons when he’s on the floor with him. Once he learns to play defense and defer to his teammates more (like lebron) then he’ll be deserving of a top 10 ranking. A lot of it is about the system you play in and the players you play with. Right now it doesn’t look like he makes anybody on his team better and the stats show he doesn’t make the team better. However, he’s young adn the team is so young they can only improve in time.

• riggs Posted: Oct.12 at 12:28 pm
  holy crap how many characters were in that twit?!?

• peter Posted: Oct.12 at 12:47 pm
  Right now, KD is the worst defensive player in the nba. Shooting guards to small forwards have a field day with him. KD plays more like nowitzki, nothing to contribute but scoring. He can say what he wants, but the thunder are about to be the worst team in the nba AGAIN.

• Teddy-the-Bear Posted: Oct.12 at 1:08 pm
  Well if the Thunder are being beat every game regardless if Kevin Durant is playing or not, his +/- is going to really suck. It really is not his fault and he shouldn’t be worried about it. Obviously Kevin Durant IS the OKC Thunder. Unless I’m missing something here about the +/- stat?

• Allenp Posted: Oct.12 at 1:24 pm
  He’s a gunner.

• kappa Posted: Oct.12 at 1:37 pm
  Teddy Bear- yes, you are missing something. Basic box score plus minus does what you seem to think, but sites that look at season long plus minus measures OKC’s performance with him on the court vs. OKC’s performance without him. Durant clearly has no idea what plus/minus is and his response was poor (but at least he didn’t just call stats people nerds). Henry has a great follow up post where he once again tries to explain plus minus and what it means to Kevin. It would be great if Kevin has the maturity to understand it the second time around. On a side note, Henry’s original article (at truehoop) was great, and the way he responded to Kevin’s complaints was even better.

• tavoris Posted: Oct.12 at 1:51 pm
  peter…worst defensive player in the ENTIRE NBA? really? he tries…and that fact alone makes him better than a few superstars on D.

• TADOne Posted: Oct.12 at 2:06 pm
  Sh*t! He can come be a gunner on my team anytime.

• Z Posted: Oct.12 at 2:26 pm
  Guys, just read the article. Westbrook’s +/- is MUCH better than KD’s. Green’s too. Why is that? They play tons of minutes too. The combinations that don’t include KD have been the most productive for OKC for two years. Questions have to be raised, at least.

• Z Posted: Oct.12 at 2:28 pm
  Everybody can see that KD is supremely talented, thats not the point. The question is: why is he not helping his team wins games? For the life of me, I can not picture Kobe, Bron or Tim Duncan winning 20 games in a season with any collection of players. Yet, we want to include him in that category. Too early, he needs to figure out a thing or three about the game besides getting buckets.

• logues Posted: Oct.12 at 2:45 pm
  twitter is so dumb, why is he even wasting his time with that

• henry Posted: Oct.12 at 2:53 pm
  like this from durant, but dont like it on twitter.. maybe a facebook update

• Toivo Posted: Oct.12 at 3:00 pm
  I agree with Durant completely on this. Durant will be one of the best players to ever play this game and the method used by the author of that article doesn’t tell the whole story of his game. The +- thing can be telling but what needs to be considered is that his team is still young and not on the same level as the competition many nights. Furthermore played 39minutes a game and it makes sense that if the bench is in the game when the game is already lost they might do a good job against the other teams bench but that doesn’t mean they a better team without him. Keep ballin Durant you will be the best!!!

• Dagomar Posted: Oct.12 at 4:07 pm
  Why don’t some of you guys actually read the original article and Abbot’s response to Durant’s twitter before coming out here and talking about this issue? Peter: so Dirk doesn’t rebound now?

• Bryan Posted: Oct.12 at 4:19 pm
  Kobe won 35 games one time with better players than jeff green and russell westbrook z. And lebron won 30 something games his first year with a decent roster. Just saying.

• Michael NZ Posted: Oct.12 at 4:21 pm
  I’m at the point where I just ignore +/- stats… and, shockingly, decide whether I think a player help or hurts the team by WATCHING the damn game.

• Blackrick Posted: Oct.12 at 4:52 pm
  I know KD pesonally(PG stand up!!)and most of the people critisizing him would love to have them on there team.His still learning,he’s not even 23 yet.Give him time.

• Russ Bengtson Posted: Oct.12 at 5:01 pm
  F*ck a bunch of constructive criticism anyway.

• MooButter Posted: Oct.12 at 5:19 pm
  Read the article, then comment. If Durrant is really as a hard a worker as his reputation suggests, he’ll thank truehoop for the free analysis and get to work on the shortcomings in his game. He could really benefit a lot from this article if he gets dedicated to fixing it instead of getting defensive and avoiding it.

• Toivo Posted: Oct.12 at 5:29 pm
  Okay, after reading the response on espn.com i have to agree with MooButter. However, the way the article was written at first did indeed come off as a harsh critique. But, Durant needs to listen to it. He is still 21 so he has LOTS of time to develop!! He should just read the critique, talk to his coaches, and then listen to some Michael Jordan and use this as motivation to do better. Jordan was critiqued all the time during his career and he used that to add wood to his competitive fire and got better and better until he became the best player ever. Durant wants to be in that convo so he needs to suck up the critique, which was very clear in saying he is a beast(!) and get better!!

• Dyce Posted: Oct.12 at 6:11 pm
  He plays more defense than Vince Carter….

• Teddy-the-Bear Posted: Oct.12 at 7:13 pm
  Ah, I see. Thanks Kappa.

• Blinguo Posted: Oct.12 at 7:18 pm
  This Twitter post, pretty defensive. Not on court but you can’t say he’s not a defender!

• Blinguo Posted: Oct.12 at 7:20 pm
  There are no Plus Minus individ. coaches in the NBA, now or in the forseeable future. How does he work exclusively on the Plus minus missing part of his game?

• Dave Posted: Oct.12 at 8:41 pm
  I think +/- is horses*it.
  PJ: “Holy crap, did Nellie actually just put that lineup on the floor? Well, that’s gastro for you. Sasha and Ammo, get out there with Kobe. Powell, is that your name? You play centre. Lamar, play point and by the way, happy birthday.”
  +/- Nerd: “I don’t understand why they didn’t use the Kobe/Sasha/Morrison/Powell/Odom lineup! The one time they used it they were 44 points ahead!”

• Shem Posted: Oct.12 at 10:51 pm
  Kevin Durant is one of my favorite players. But he just doesnt play D, he doesnt make good pases or rebound. Hes a solid guy now, he has the potential to be a HOF when its all said and done but let the man work. I dont even think hes 21 yet and hes already averaging 25 a game and i guarantee it will go up soon.

• Emon Nazari Posted: Oct.12 at 11:53 pm
  Kevin Durant is one of the best players in the league, no one should ever give him the plus and minuses. averaging 25 ppg and like 7 bpg. he’s doing the best he can so let him be that player he is.

• Emon Nazari Posted: Oct.12 at 11:54 pm
  Kevin Durant is one of the best players in the league today, no one should give him the plus and minuses, he’s practicing every damn day. just let him be the player he can be on and off the court.

• ja lawrence Posted: Oct.13 at 2:12 am
  He’s a great player and has the potential to be greater. I think the +/- stat is garbage but his rant was a little whiny.

• K.B Posted: Oct.13 at 3:28 am
  how many games lebron win the first 2 seasons? exactly. kobe without shaq or phil jackson in 04-05? exactly. yall need 2 shut the fuck up about this plus minus bullshit and remember that he only 21. he one of the best in the league and will continue to get better. he on a young team thats improveing every season and i gurantee they win at least 30-35 games this year

• don Posted: Oct.13 at 4:00 am
  if he was on my time and he keeps shooting the way he did at the rook vs. soph game last season, i wouldn’t ask him to play D. i would hide him in my zone defense.

• Ronald Posted: Oct.13 at 5:06 am
  Blinguo: To improve his +/- he works the mental aspects of his game. When to pass/score and when to defend and how and who. Learn tendencies and read scouting reports. Dave: +/- stats are the most accurate stats you can get because it is not affect by subjective scorekeepers/statkeepers. And a lot of coaches are starting to dip into the sport statistics aspect of the game. Not directly, but definately to gain an edge.

• NUPE Posted: Oct.13 at 8:40 am
  Are people reading the article. His team performs better without him on the floor than they do with him. That’s pretty simple. What KD needs to do is learn how to make his team better, not just post great individual stats. I think most of the hard work he needs to do is in the locker room providing leadership and confidence in his teammates. He’s a great individual player – everybody knows that. But if he’s not helping the team win or at least play better, what’s the point.

• Jukai Posted: Oct.13 at 9:04 am
  While the article is probably valid and KD does need to be more of a ‘team player’ to help OKC, there are three things to comment on:
  1) Kevin Durant played 39 minutes a game in 74 games… so we have 2885 minutes of Kevin Durant +/-, and only 1051 minutes of no Kevin Durant +/-. This is not a good percentage to make generalizations. One would need 50% KD +/- time and 50% no KD +/- time. Instead, we have about 74/26, and one can chuck up that limited amount of time to ‘luck’
  2) It is a possibility that when Kevin Durant is in, the other stars on the other team are in. Likewise, when KD comes out, the stars of the other team might come out. Since it is nearly impossible to see who plays who and tally that all up in this equation, one can hypothesize that when Kevin Durant isn’t in the game, the OKC are playing against inferior competition.
  3) The Thunder need to tank anyway to get better draft picks
  All that being said, KD needs to cry me a river, build a bridge, and get the #$*% over it. Dude wont last long in the L if he can’t take ONE ARTICLE written about him.

• MooButter Posted: Oct.13 at 10:02 am
  @ Jukai: on your first point, I don’t think anyone is willing to chalk up over a quarter of their season to luck nor would it be considered “limited”. Your second point is explained in the two articles. All the other starters have significantly better plus minus ratings. Westbrook is their second best player and his is way better. He’s seeing a lot of the same court time. Third point, I agree. Toughen up KD.

• Big Al Posted: Oct.13 at 12:19 pm
  The Thunder score more points than their opponent does when Durant is on the bench. The Thunder score fewer points than their opponent when Durant is on the floor. This is troubling because Durant has yet to play effective defense or make plays for his teammates. The only thing he does effectively right now is get to the basket for high-percentage shots. The rest of the time, he floats on offense, can’t guard on the pick and roll, and takes highly contested long jumpshots with low effectiveness.

• Niya-girl-fresh Posted: Oct.13 at 1:19 pm
  I agree with him. Alot of people including NBA fans become so hung up on stats they omit efficiency and accuracy of each players game. A player can have like 50 points on 20 shots but be 2-20 from the freethrow line or 1-15 behind the arc. Poeple overlook the inconsistent areas of people’s game and focus too much on who has the fuller stat box to define one’s game. Even the analyst, so Kevin is extrememly right on his part.

• vic21 Posted: Oct.13 at 5:16 pm
  KD’s talking about ESPN.com ‘s “The Kevin Durant Conundrum” article. Don’t you realize you ESPN “journalists” we bb fans are sick of your stupid articles. You overanalyze stuff we don’t give a damn about. Any a**hole can be an ESPN journalist nowadays. KD you’re the man, future HOF, future MVP, soon to be All Star. f*** ESPN

• vic21 Posted: Oct.13 at 8:18 pm
  And how about yesterday? 5/5 3PM-A, and +/- of +24. 30 points and 11 rebounds vs the Suns. How’s that for stats you nerdy muthafuckas?

• vic21 Posted: Oct.13 at 8:19 pm
  And how about yesterday? 5/5 3PM-A, and +/- of +24. 30 points and 11 rebounds vs the Suns. How’s that for stats you nerdy *****?

• Dave Posted: Oct.13 at 10:32 pm
  Thanks to Jukai for expressing exactly why I think +/- is horsesh*t, but much better and less caustically than I did.

• Dave Posted: Oct.13 at 10:34 pm
  @Ronald: +/- is used to avoid having to watch games and actually analyse players. It tells you less than watching a player for a whole game does. End of story.