MAVS 108, PELS 92

[mavsluvr]

Of course he does. 

Kidd isn't dumb. He knows WHY the +/- question was asked of him. He knows what the numbers are saying about Luka (and KP). Reason would suggest that Kidd was purposefully protecting his star(s) as he should.

Reason would suggest that Kidd said he doesn't care about plus-minus in assessing player performance in any particular game, because he doesn't. Because he doesn't think it gives him any information he considers reliable. Luka don't even need protecting on that account, except maybe from reporters who don't understand the significance of a data point. 

And as I have often said: +/- actually DOES NOT and CANNOT "lie." It tells you the truth 100% of the time. However, your initial and immediate interpretations of +/- can lie. But the numbers themselves never lie.

The only thing individual +/- tells you the truth about is what the point differential was when a particular player was on the floor (or not on the floor, as the case may be). It tells you absolutely nothing about how that player played. Doesn't tell you how many shots he made, how many he missed, whether he rebounded well, how many defensive plays he made, how well he played within the system, how he was progressing in areas of emphasis, anything that a coach would be looking at in evaluating the guy's performance in the game. Not. One. Thing. And Kidd said (I believe, honestly), that if you try to extract the truth about how a guy played by looking at a +/- stat, you're very likely to be misled.  

No one is saying that the +/- stat inaccurately represents the score differential. But anything beyond that one piece of raw data is interpretation. Interpretation is good, but it can be wrong, initially, immediately, or over the long term. And the +/- stat alone gives you no actionable information without interpretation. Yes, it's a verifiable fact to the limited extent it goes, but it doesn't prove anything.