The opening weeks of this unique NBA season are now
complete, and I have taken a look at the overall ATS results in the NBA and put
together a quick report on the ATS trends to date, which ones may be likely to
continue, to stop, or even to reverse.
This week I looked at the Eastern Conference, and watch for
next week when I will cover the Western Conference, as well as start my college
basketball conference summaries.
One trend NBA bettors noticed right off the bat in the NBA this
season is that the posted totals appear to be a bit systematically high,
resulting in a strong league-wide under trend. This trend has been more
pronounced in the Western Conference, but it has still been the case in the
East as well, where ‘unders’ have come in at more than 55% so far. It also
appears to be a case where the oddsmakers have just set the totals too high
overall, because the under trend is not being driven by one or a few teams
going way under, but rather by all the teams going moderately under as a group.
And in subsets, the under trend is particularly pronounced,
which you would expect if the entire market itself, which should be very
accurate, is in fact slightly off. I identified a basket of known
“defense-oriented” teams that are capable of dictating the pace at home, and
those teams combined have so far an astoundingly high ‘unders’ rate at home.
We will see how the NBA odds makers and the market adjusts
the totals going forward, and how scoring changes or stays the same as well.
With spreads, it was speculated that youth and depth would
be at an even greater premium this year than in others as a result of the
compressed schedule. The Philadelphia 76ers got off to a great start, winning
games and covering most spreads as well. However, the Sixers did also have the
luxury of playing an extremely easy schedule in the beginning of the season,
and their ATS results are likely to even out or even reverse once they start to
play a tougher schedule. Their current 3-game stretch against top teams may be
very telling. The Sixers lost their first game in that stretch outright as a
favorite against Denver, and we’ll see how they fare ATS against Miami and
Atlanta this weekend, but I would be surprised if they wind up covering both
spreads.
The Knicks have been a bad bet in the early going, despite
high expectations with Carmelo Anthony, Amare Stoudamire, and Tyson Chandler in
the front court. My sense is their ATS results will even out somewhat soon,
dependent on the health of those three big men.
Detroit, though, appears to be going nowhere fast, and will
probably need a big boost in their underdog lines to become a .500 ATS team
going forward, which may not happen. Detroit is 2-8 ATS over their last 10
games, and all but one of those ATS losses were by 7.5 points or more.