On to part 3! If you haven’t taken a look at part 1 and 2, go back and review. In the previous article, we left off briefly discussing the effect of Vegas point spreads and totals. Generally, we want to be rostering players on teams that are favored and have a higher team total than their year to date average, particularly in games projected to be close. This is especially true for star players that are likely to have the ball in their hands for most of the 4th quarter. Let’s look at some players to see what their PPM is like in quarters 1-3 vs. the 4th. James Harden 1.6 1-3Q vs 1.6 4Q (not the best example) Russell Westbrook 1.64 vs 2.11 LeBron James 1.30 vs 1.54 Kemba Walker 1.16 vs 1.26 Jimmy Butler 1.15 vs 1.41 Isaiah Thomas 1.2 vs 1.55 Damian Lillard 1.19 vs 1.28 Stephen Curry 1.28 vs 1.37 Kevin Durant 1.46 vs 1.39 John Wall 1.31 vs 1.39 Andre Drummond 1.25 vs 1.14 Kyle Lowry 1.09 vs 1.32 Lou Williams 1.09 vs 1.27 This is worth playing around with on nbawowy, but for the most part it is likely that star players, especially guards and
