2011-12 NBA Betting Outlook
The old adage of the best way to see into the future is to study the past had nothing to do with sports gambling, but it very well could have. Looking at previous results and trying to find discernable patterns and tendencies is something that should be done before the start of every new season.Here, we'll look at what transpired in the 2010-11 NBA season and see if there are any trends that we should keep an eye on for the 2011-12 season. We'll look at sides in this article and look at totals here as we try to find a few pieces of information that you can use in your daily battles with the bookies.
NBA Sides
During the 2010-11 NBA regular season, favorites were 845-385 straight up, but just 585-621-24 ATS. There is slight value to taking the underdogs, but not enough to show a profit.Home favorites were 397-438-17, which is just 47.5%, so taking all road underdogs is essentially a break-even proposition. Road favorites were 188-183-7, which is basically a 50-50 proposition.
Now, let's break favorites into home and away, as well as by certain spread ranges, starting off with home favorites.
Home favorites of 2.5 points or less: 56-79-3
Home favorites of 3 to 5.5 points: 110-126-5
Home favorites of 6 to 9.5 points: 161-151-7
Home favorites of 10 to 14.5 points: 60-71-2
Home favorites of 15 or more points: 10-11-0
There really isn't anything that jumps right out at you, but it is interesting to note that home favorites of 5.5 points or less were just 166-205-8, which is 44.7% against the number.
Now, we'll look at the same for road favorites:
Road favorites of 2.5 points or less: 50-62-3
Road favorites of 3 to 5.5 points: 79-80-3
Road favorites of 6 to 9.5 points: 53-36-1
Home favorites of 10 to 14.5 points: 4-7-0
Home favorites of 15 or more points: 0-0-0
Obviously, the road favorites of 6 to 9.5 points stands out, as that 53-36-1 record translates to 59.6% against the spread. Even if we lump in the losing 4-7 mark for double-digit road favorites, we would have posted a 57-43-1 (57%) record just by taking all road favorites of six or more points.
Favorites and Rest
Now, let's see if rest has any effect on favorites. We'll look at both home and away favorites with different days in between games:Home favorites with no rest: 51-67-1
Home favorites with 1 or 2 days rest: 304-332-15
Home favorites with three days or more rest: 34-34-1
We see that home favorites playing the second half of a back-to-back situation covered the spread just 43.2% of the time and the home favorites saw an increase in their winning percentage as the number of days in between games increased.
Road favorites with no rest: 58-52-4
Road favorites with 1 or 2 days rest: 121-118-3
Road favorites with three days or more rest: 9-12-0
For road teams, we see the exact opposite in that they did best against the spread without any rest and did their worst with an extended layoff.
East vs. West
Finally, we'll look at how teams from the East have done against the West and vice-versa.East home favorite vs. West: 55-78-2
East road favorite vs. West: 27-21-0
West home favorite vs. East: 91-83-3
West road favorite vs. East: 41-45-4
Once again we see opposite scenarios, as the Eastern teams have been poor home favorites against the West, but were profitable as road favorites, while Western teams performed better as home favorites. The East's home favorite record of 55-78-2 (41.4%) is hard to ignore.
The results presented here were obtained from this year's Stat Attack NBA Basketball 2011-12 program and gives you an idea of the type of research that you can do with the program.
