On Saturday night against the Hornets, Utah Jazz forward Cody Williams, lived through one of the harshest realities basketball can offer. Every time he stepped on the floor, the game seemed to go the wrong way. The team missed lots of shots, defensive rotations broke down, and the Hornets went on run, after run. By the final buzzer, the box score told a brutal story. Cody Williams finished with a –60 plus/minus, a number so big it almost felt unreal. 

Yet within that number was a full night of effort—sprinting back on defense, making the extra pass, and staying engaged even as the deficit grew. While fans fixated on the statistics, Cody left the game more focused on the loss their team had just experienced, despite his 15 points on 5-9 shooting.

Prior to this historic game by Cody Williams, the worst plus/minus ever seen in a game was -58 shared by Scoot Henderson and Jermiah Robison-Earl. While the highest ever being held by Mbah a Moute in a 2007 game against the Nuggets, where he achieved a +57 plus/minus on the day.

That performance raises an important question about the relevance of plus/minus and its connection to greatness. Plus/minus measures how the team performs while a player is on the floor, not just what that player individually does. Because of that, it is heavily influenced by teammates, lineups, matchups, and overall flow of the game. A great player on a struggling unit can post an ugly plus/minus, while just as an average player can look elite surrounded by strong teammates.

In that sense, a single plus/minus number, no matter how extreme, shouldn’t be considered the whole story. It captures context, but not intent, effort, or long-term ability. Coaches and analysts use it as a tool, not a conclusion, pairing it with film, situational data, and consistency over many games. A night like Cody Williams’ –60 against the Hornets becomes less about labeling a player and more about understanding circumstances: rotations that didn’t work, momentum swings that snowballed, and how quickly basketball can punish small mistakes. Plus/minus matters most in patterns, not outliers, and its real value lies in helping teams ask better questions rather than handing down final judgments about a player’s ceiling or future.