Everybody has a type, and ESPN's new real plus-minus is no exception.
The beauty of RPM is that its assessment of players isn't made on assumptions about value, as with most popular box score metrics such as PER, WARP and Win Shares. Instead, RPM goes by what happened when the player is on the court or on the bench, adjusted for teammates and opponents. So it starts as an unbiased measure of player value.
At the same time, RPM results do reveal certain trends, including types of players that rate well, or poorly, due to common characteristics.
Taking a look at those groups can help us understand what really matters in terms of winning and losing in the NBA.
In the spirit of the popular dating apps, in which users anonymously rate potential mates by either swiping right (to indicate interest) or swiping left (to pass), let's take a look at what RPM would say when various types of players pop up on the screen.