Basketball Plus-Minus: What It Is and How to Calculate It
Plus-minus (written +/-) is one of the simplest ways to see how your team does with a player on the floor. It's the same stat you see in NBA box scores, and it works just as well for a youth or rec league game. This page explains what plus-minus means, walks through an example, and shows how to track player and lineup plus-minus for free with HoopScoreboard.
What plus-minus means
A player's plus-minus is your team's points minus the opponent's points while that player was in the game. If your team outscores the other team 12-7 during a player's minutes, that player is +5. If the other team wins that stretch 9-4, the player is -5. Points scored while a player sits on the bench don't count for or against them.
Plus-minus counts every point, not just the player's own. A player who never scores can still have the best plus-minus on the team by defending, rebounding, and setting up teammates.
How to calculate plus-minus: an example
Say your starters are Avery, Blake, Casey, Drew, and Emery, and Finley comes off the bench. The game breaks into three stretches, split by two substitutions:
| Stretch | On the floor | Score in stretch | +/- |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Tip-off | Avery, Blake, Casey, Drew, Emery | 10-6 | +4 |
| 2. Finley in for Emery | Avery, Blake, Casey, Drew, Finley | 4-8 | -4 |
| 3. Emery in for Avery | Blake, Casey, Drew, Emery, Finley | 8-3 | +5 |
Your team wins 22-17. Add up each player's stretches to get their plus-minus:
| Player | Stretches played | Plus-minus |
|---|---|---|
| Avery | 1, 2 | +4 - 4 = 0 |
| Blake, Casey, Drew | 1, 2, 3 | +4 - 4 + 5 = +5 |
| Emery | 1, 3 | +4 + 5 = +9 |
| Finley | 2, 3 | -4 + 5 = +1 |
A quick way to check your math: add up every player's plus-minus and it should equal five times the final margin. Here that's 0 + 5 + 5 + 5 + 9 + 1 = 25, and the team won by 5.
Lineup plus-minus
Lineup plus-minus applies the same idea to a five-player group. Your points minus the opponent's points while those exact five were on the floor together is that lineup's plus-minus. In the example above, there were three lineups:
- Avery, Blake, Casey, Drew, Emery: +4
- Avery, Blake, Casey, Drew, Finley: -4
- Blake, Casey, Drew, Emery, Finley: +5
If the same five play together more than once, add their stretches together. Lineup plus-minus is often more useful than player plus-minus, because it shows which combinations work, not just which players happened to be on the floor during good runs.
How coaches use it, and its limits
Plus-minus is a good conversation starter. A bench player with a strong number might deserve more minutes. A lineup that keeps losing its stretches might need a different ball handler or more size.
It's also noisy. One game is a small sample, and a player who always plays with the starters will usually look better than one who checks in against the other team's best five. Look at plus-minus over several games, compare lineups rather than single players, and use it alongside what you see on the court. Our guide to keeping basketball stats has more on reading the numbers carefully.
Track plus-minus for free
Doing this by hand means writing down the score at every substitution and adding it all up after the game. HoopScoreboard does the bookkeeping for you:
- Enter your roster. The first five players are your starters.
- Tap a player's buttons when they score, and the opponent card when the other team scores.
- Tap SUB on the player coming out and pick who goes in.
- End the game to see plus-minus for every player and every lineup you used.
It's free, runs in your browser on any phone or tablet, and doesn't need an account or an app download. Start tracking plus-minus now.