Players helping and hurting your wagers
By DAVE CAREY
Who’s talking about playoffs?
This time of year, the standings can be a huge factor on where bettors place their faith – and money. Teams that have fallen off are looking to unload players for salary cap reasons and care more about protecting their stars and developing young talent, than trotting out a winning lineup. It’s easy to pick out below which player’s teams are doing well, and which are scrambling just to get in the postseason.
Helping your bets
Tyrone Lewis, Niagara Purple Eagles
One of the best mid-major teams no one is talking about continues to power along toward a possible berth in next month’s NCAA Tournament. Lewis, a 5-foot-11, 180-pound guard has led the Purple Eagles (22-7 SU, 18-9 ATS) to an NCAA-high ATS win total and second place in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference behind popular bracket buster pick Siena.
Lewis has led his team to wins in eight of its past nine games while reaching double figures in scoring in each time during the streak. The junior also leads the team in scoring (16.5 ppg) and steals per game (2.9). He has reached double figures in scoring in 26 of the team’s 29 games and had 19 points and four steals in a convincing, 70-56 win over Illinois State last weekend.
Ramon Sessions, Milwaukee Bucks
No Michael Redd? No problem for the upstarts from the Eastern Conference.
Sessions, a 6-foot-3, 190-pound point guard in his second year out of Nevada is emerging as one of the top young players in the league since Redd suffered a season-ending ligament tear in his left knee on Jan. 24. Since the injury, the Bucks (28-31 SU, 33-24-2 ATS) are 6-6 but have won six of their past 10.
And Session’s emergence is the reason the team has played itself into eighth place in the East. Sessions is averaging 12.1 points and 4.8 assists per game this season. But during the past 10 he is averaging 20 points and 7.6 assists per game, including posting season highs in points (44) and assists (17). There’s a reason Milwaukee wouldn’t part with this young star at the trade deadline.
Hurting your bets
Rodney Stuckey, Detroit Pistons
The replacement for Chauncey Billups in the Motor City isn’t close to producing at the same level as Mr. Big Shot. Stuckey, a second-year player out of Eastern Washington, has shown flashes of a complete game at times, but his lack of defense has limited his minutes and now, his offense is slipping.
Detroit (27-27 SU, 20-34 ATS) has been one of the league’s biggest disappointments this season losing six straight and eight of 10, with only cellar-dweller Sacramento doing as poorly during the same stretch. Stuckey’s erratic play has been one of the biggest culprits. He is averaging just 9.8 points and 4.1 assists against 3.3 turnovers per game during the stretch. Compare those numbers to the 13.1 points and 4.9 assists per game he averages on the season.
Andrei Markov, Montreal Canadiens
And you thought the Rangers were struggling -- just look at the Canadiens.
In fact, New York has been the only team to flounder worse than Montreal in its past 10 games, as the Canadiens (31-22-7 SU) are a meager 3-6-1 during that span falling into fifth place in the Eastern Conference, only a point ahead of eighth-place Buffalo.
The problem for Montreal has been keeping the puck out of its own net – something it hasn’t done when Markov is on the ice. The 30-year-old defensemen leads the team in scoring (47 points), but is a terrible minus-4. In his past 10 games, he is minus-13 and has failed to record an even-strength point. The Canadiens have allowed 184 goals this season, the most of any team in the top eight of either conference with just five teams in the league yielding more.