NBA Full-Time Total Points: How to Track and Analyze Player Performance Throughout the Season

The crisp sound of sneakers squeaking on hardwood is my winter soundtrack. I was hunched over my laptop, the blue glow of the screen illuminating my face as a late-November game played out on my second monitor. My friend Mark, a casual fan, had texted me: "How is [Player X] actually doing this year? His scoring seems all over the place." It was a simple question, but it opened the floodgates to my favorite rabbit hole: the deep, nuanced world of tracking NBA full-time total points. It’s not just about the final number you see on the stat sheet the next morning; it’s about the story behind that number, the trajectory of a player’s performance across the grueling 82-game marathon of a season. It reminds me, in a strange way, of my other passion: video game analysis. There's a parallel here to the recent discourse around the Metal Gear Solid franchise. You see, there has been a lot of toxicity around the Metal Gear Solid franchise for a while now, and some of that no doubt lingers and will color the sentiment around Delta. Fans, myself included, often approach a new entry with a baggage of expectations and past grievances, focusing on what's missing—like Kojima’s absence—rather than evaluating the product in front of them. I find myself doing the same with NBA players sometimes. We get so caught up in the drama of a contract dispute, a trade request, or a coach's firing that it can cloud our analysis of the raw performance on the court. After all, Kojima isn't involved in Delta and fans of Metal Gear Solid have a longstanding animosity toward Konami because of the high-profile break-up between the two parties, as well as the reported impact the dissolution of the relationship had on Metal Gear Solid 5. But if you strip away that noise, you can sometimes find a genuinely compelling experience. But these are small idiosyncrasies in a game that has otherwise been made with a clear reverence for the source material. Similarly, a player’s season-long point total, when tracked properly, tells a story of resilience, adaptation, and pure skill, separate from the off-court soap opera.

So, how do I actually track this? It’s not just a spreadsheet, though I have several that would make an accountant blush. It starts with the baseline: the raw full-time total points. Let’s take a fictional example, a rising star we'll call "Jalen Sparks." By December 1st last season, Sparks had racked up 612 points. Solid, right? But that number is a snapshot. The real magic is in the trends. I break the season into 10-game segments. In his first 10 games, he averaged 28.5 points. In the next 10, plagued by a minor ankle sprain, that dropped to 22.1. See? The full-season total smooths that out, but the segment analysis shows the vulnerability. I also track his points in wins versus losses. Last year, his average was 31.2 in wins and 24.8 in losses. That’s a telling 6.4-point differential that speaks volumes about his impact on winning basketball. I’m a sucker for these splits—it’s where the narrative truly lives.

And then there’s the context, the stuff that doesn't always make the highlight reel. I remember a game where a player scored a quiet 18 points. On the surface, a mediocre night. But I dug deeper: he was a +25 on the court, meaning his team outscored the opponent by 25 points when he was playing. His defense was stifling, he made the right passes, and his 18 points came on an ultra-efficient 7-of-9 shooting. That’s a performance that a simple glance at the full-time total points would completely miss. It’s like judging a game based solely on its metacritic score without understanding the design choices, the art direction, the feel of the gameplay. We get so obsessed with the final number—be it a score or a point total—that we forget the texture of the journey. My personal preference? I value consistency over explosive outbursts. I’d rather have a player who gives me 25 points night after night than a guy who drops 50 one night and 12 the next. That reliability is what builds a championship contender. It’s the foundation.

Of course, you can’t talk about this without mentioning the advanced metrics. True Shooting Percentage (TS%) is my best friend. It tells me how efficiently a player is scoring, factoring in free throws and three-pointers. A player averaging 30 points with a 55% TS% is less valuable, in my book, than a player averaging 27 with a 62% TS%. That efficiency is pure gold in the modern NBA. I also look at usage rate—what percentage of his team's plays a player uses when he's on the floor. If a guy’s scoring 25 points on a 35% usage rate, he’s basically the entire offense. But if he’s scoring 25 on a 25% usage rate? That’s superstar-level efficiency, a player who dominates without needing to monopolize the ball. It’s these layers of data that transform the simple act of tracking NBA full-time total points from a hobby into a rich, analytical pursuit. It allows me to see past the headlines and the fan toxicity, right to the heart of what makes a player truly great, game after game after game.