THE NBA season is almost here and there are few sports in the world that provide the level of excitement and drama delivered on a daily basis in the best pro basketball league in the world.
The NBA regular season is an absolute rollercoasters for players, fans & bettors. To help you navigate things we’ve put together five key points to help you better position yourself against one of the most efficient markets in the world.
1. Bet the early markets
Getting into the habit of looking and staking on opening lines will give you greater opportunity to find value in the markets.
Betting just before tip-off is is forcing yourself to go against what is the most efficient numbers. It’s been bet into by sharps and adjusted according to their perceived edge, and has also had any new information incorporated to make it the most accurate pre-game number.
Give yourself the best shot at securing a market edge by doing your homework prior to lines coming out. That should put you in the best position to find a good market entry point and give you the opportunity to hold positive expected value on your ticket come tip-off.
2. Learn about schedule spots
The NBA schedule is brutal and it can set up some very interesting betting matchups as a result. While a lot of this information is built into the line you can still find meaningful advantages by doing your homework and finding scheduling mismatches.
Back-to-backs are the easy spot but not often valuable against the markets. However, finding teams who are playing their 6th game in 9 nights, or even their 3rd in 4 nights can lead to some great fade spots on teams when their opponents have a significant rest advantage.
Travel is another component to look into when looking at schedules as well. Teams crossing time zones or flying cross country can find themselves in some letdown spots as their bodies try to adjust to different to their new environments.
3. Don’t buy points
Multi betting is a fun outlay for recreational bettors, but the one thing that will get you in trouble on a near nightly basis in the NBA is buying points on multiple games.
For those that don’t know what that means; it’s when you see a team like the Lakers being priced at -3.5 points against Memphis on the road and deciding to take them at +7.5 in a multi to help boost your odds. In simple terms, this is just bad betting and will lead you down a dead-end street.
Given the number of possessions per game for teams, and the ease in which scoring occurs in the sport, it makes for high-level variance that can lead to regular nightly blowouts both for favourites and underdogs.
If you want to throw a small something on an NBA multi you’re better off playing the even-money lines rather than trying to buy points on multiple teams and hoping for low-variance on the true number.
4. Trends don’t matter
Everyone can give you a trend for any play on any night in basically any league in the world!
Trends really mean nothing and basing your nightly picks on that alone is a recipe for disaster. Any trends you have on a team can be countered with one the other way, and that’s not in any way hyperbole.
I have no problem identifying strong trends to support your bet, but don’t rely on them as your primary source of information. Remember that the landscape in the NBA changes on a yearly basis so a lot of trends that point out how a team performs against a previous opponent in years gone by may be completely worthless if one of those teams has had a complete roster overhaul.
5. Learn the value of home court advantage
With fans set to return to NBA arenas this season it’s worth doing your research and finding out which teams have a genuine advantage when playing in their home city.
The most important advice I can give on this subject is that not all home courts are equal so don’t assume that any home team is automatically benefitted by being in a familiar environment. There are often other factors at play, including location – Denver are the most recognisable in this regard given they play their games at an altitude higher than what most teams are comfortable with. Going there on a road trip with minimal rest is often one of the worst schedule spots in the NBA so be sure to apply that information accurately.
By comparison, someone like Orlando won’t have the same home court edge given the team’s lack of star power is unlikely to draw large capacity crowds to provide the same support other teams might get on their hardwood.
Understanding each teams true home court value can often help you find some nice betting spots for teams that are potentially being either over or undervalued on their floor.
Be sure to check in daily throughout the NBA season as we look to provide you with plenty of useful content to help you stay on top of the game.
