User:RahalMccall69

@@@ A comment from Sancho Lyttle during yesterday's game between the Atlanta Dream and New York Liberty definitely caught my interest.聽 She was asked by a reporter if the Dream's recent setbacks were due to being unfocused or somehow out of sync.聽 Lyttle answered:

I say it鈥檚 the curse of the second half. In the six years that I鈥檝e been here, every time it鈥檚 the second half; we play this way until the playoffs. I don鈥檛 know why. I hope to live to see the day that we don鈥檛. I don鈥檛 know what it is. Maybe we鈥檝e lost focus a <a href=http://www.louisvuittontassenkopen.com/goedkoop-louis-vuitton-alma-12>Louis Vuitton Alma Tassen</a> little bit, maybe we鈥檙e playing <a href=http://www.louisvuittontassenkopen.com/goedkoop-louis-vuitton-speedy-17>Louis Vuitton tassen Speedy</a> like we know too much or something. I鈥檓 not too sure.

It would certainly be very convenient to explain away Atlanta's lack of fortune to a second half of the regular season curse - that way, we could just claim, "it's that time of year again".聽 But was there any way to verify Lyttle's statement?

I excluded the incomplete 2014 season and looked at the 2009 through 2013 regular seasons - the seasons that Lyttle has been a part of the Dream lineup.聽 For every team currently in the WNBA, I looked at the number of wins they had in the first half of the regular season and the number of wins they had in the second half.聽 Adding up the second <a href=http://www.louisvuittontassenkopen.com/goedkoop-louis-vuitton-portemonn-16>Louis Vuitton Portemonn</a> half wins over the last five years and comparing this sum to the sum of first half wins over the same time frame should give me an idea of how much the team slumps in the back half of the regular season.聽 If second half wins minus first half wins is negative, then there's evidence that the team fades as the season progresses.聽 If the number is positive, the team has been better in the second half than in the first half over the last five years.

The numbers: