I think clearly stat analysis at it’s very basic level is always going to be useful. I think the question should be if the advanced statistics that are (arguably) still in their infancy are useful. You don’t see it as much in the football context, but it’s been this has been the raging debate in baseball for a while now.

Linked is an example of the typical argument:

http://www.baseballdailydigest.com/2010/03/06/a-theory-on-the-acceptance-of-sabermetrics/

Personally I think that the advanced stats are just another tool in player evaluation; no more no less. They are helpful (and at times very helpful) particularly in ways that traditional scouting can’t cover, but often I feel that advocates of the statistical analysis and models get too wrapped up in the numbers and can (to a certain extent) ignore the fact that the game is still played by flesh and blood players.

Stats don’t win championships, playing (executing plays correctly) does.

The first link takes you to the wrong page, but the rest of the articles were really, really fascinating. I was particularly struck by the observation that basketball stats generally, and +/- specifically, are very consistent from year to year, when adjusted for playing time, etc. As a poster named Just_A-Lad pointed out in the comments to the Houston blog, they are even MORE consistent than baseball stats, implying even greater predictive power. It was a revealing counterpoint to Friedman’s anti-stats piece that Drummer linked to a while back.

Come to think of it, I’d recommend Just_A_Lad’s comments over Hochschild’s actual blog post. The former does an excellent job of debunking the notion of “clutch.” His point about Kobe actually performing WORSE in clutch situations throughout his career was a powerful one.