History of Plus/Minus in Basketball?

[DSMok1]

Recently Andy Hill reached out to me and sent over an old article he wrote in 1976. It was published in the 1976-77 volume of Scholastic Coach, with the article dated January 1977. The article was titled "Team Contribution Index" and in it he described, in essence, the calculation of Plus/Minus for basketball.

I know that plus/minus was in use in hockey sometime in the 1960s. Andy had not heard of it when he wrote his article. His Team Contribution Index was intended to motivate players towards winning plays, because he was seeing a lot of players not caring about the scoreboard--just their stats. That trend has certainly continued!

What is the earliest record of plus/minus being applied to basketball?

Here is a link to the "Team Contribution Index" article.

[Crow]

Dean Smith and Pat Riley get some credit for being early movers in respective divisions as coaches but I dunno who was earliest coach.

I assume Pollack the Sixers statistician was early.

[Mike G]

82games?

[DQuinn1575]

In 1975-1976 my high school team kept plus/minus on players.
Our starting guard position was determined based on the best of the 3 candidates for the position.
We were doing points per possession, called Offensive Efficiency Rating, along with turnover % and rebounding % - the system was started by Paul Keller from Ohio in the very early 60s.

[fpliii]

Pollack first started reporting it I believe in 75-76 in his annual yearbooks for the Sixers.

[DSMok1]

Here's another article discussing Andy Hill and Plus/Minus:

https://www.sportingnews.com/us/ncaa-ba ... a4402ecd1e