Handicapping coaches and individual players ATS

[curious]

I know that organized sports likes for everyone to believe that all their coaches and players are squeaky clean when it comes to being involved in sports betting.

I am not so naive. Given the money involved, some coaches and players have to be involved at some level.

So, given that premise, I am wondering if anyone has ever run any statistics on coaches ATS, or individual players ATS? Or, maybe associated players ATS. By associated players I mean players who were together at Team A, and then through trades ended up together again on Team B.

I would be willing to bet that there are coaches who either beat the spread more often than the probabilities would suggest, or fail to beat the spread more often than the probabilities would suggest. Players too.

[durito]

I've come across a few team trends that have followed coaches from team to team. I always just chalked it up to some specific part of their coaching/motivation style that inspired their teams to perform better in that particular situation.

[Ganchrow]

An interesting concept and (given enough data) one worthy of further study.

One major problem you'll run into of course is that you simply won't have enough data to examine this on a player-by-player and coach-by-coach basis.

You might want to check out these two papers on related topics that might give you some ideas on how else you might proceed:

Point Shaving in College Basketball: A Cautionary Tale for Freakonomics

Point Shaving in the NBA: An Econimic Analysis of the National Basketball Association's Point Spread Betting Market

Caveat: I have done little more than skim either of these two papers.

[Data]

Obviously, it is much simpler not to cover than cover. Then, for a good team, it is much simpler and safe not to cover yet win if the spread is wider. Then, obviously, that team is going to get wider spreads while playing at home. Lets define a home court advantage as the extent of which a given team plays better at home comparing to that team playing on a neutral field. Now, how can we tell whether a team is "doing business" or it is that their HCA is smaller due to some other factors? I think we cannot, yet we already account for the possibility of point shaving while assigning different HCA to different teams. BTW, the only NBA team that matches this profile is Detroit Pistons.

Following the same train of thought, for a bad team, it is simpler to ensure a non-covering loss at home. There is a team that stands out in this department, the 76rs.

So, are there NBA fans around to chime in about Pistons and 76rs?

[curious]

Obviously, it is much simpler not to cover than cover. Then, for a good team, it is much simpler and safe not to cover yet win if the spread is wider. Then, obviously, that team is going to get wider spreads while playing at home. Lets define a home court advantage as the extent of which a given team plays better at home comparing to that team playing on a neutral field. Now, how can we tell whether a team is "doing business" or it is that their HCA is smaller due to some other factors? I think we cannot, yet we already account for the possibility of point shaving while assigning different HCA to different teams. BTW, the only NBA team that matches this profile is Detroit Pistons.

Following the same train of thought, for a bad team, it is simpler to ensure a non-covering loss at home. There is a team that stands out in this department, the 76rs.

So, are there NBA funs around to chime in about Pistons and 76rs?

Are you saying that if a team regularly engaged in point shaving at home that this would impact the HCA assigned to them, which would lower their spread at home, giving them a narrower spread to work with, and thus restricting their ability to shave points in the future? In other words the line/shaving would be self adjusting to the point that the team would have to stop shaving?

[Data]

Are you saying that if a team regularly engaged in point shaving at home that this would impact the HCA assigned to them, which would lower their spread at home, giving them a narrower spread to work with,

yes

and thus restricting their ability to shave points in the future? In other words the line/shaving would be self adjusting to the point that the team would have to stop shaving?

No, that would only be the case if every game was fixed. That is assuming you are referring to "win yet not cover" scenario.

[Peep]

I think college wise teams mostly cover/not cover for the betting alumni. Helps the scholarship fund donations.

[rookie]

I think college wise teams mostly cover/not cover for the betting alumni. Helps the scholarship fund donations.

I find it hard to believe that these unpaid players (most of whom will never play professionally) will point shave for alumni donation. But, the coaches and university officials certainly can have huge financial interest.

[curious]

I think college wise teams mostly cover/not cover for the betting alumni. Helps the scholarship fund donations.

I don't think this.

I think that certain coaches and certain players are actively involved in sports betting either by betting themselves or being rewarded/pressured by betting syndicates. But I think they could care less about donations to the school.

If you are the coach of a team favored to win by 24 and it is late in the game and your team is up by 26, how hard is it to ensure that the final has you up by 23?

[Peep]

What I think is that the coach leaves starters in longer or no, depending on whether he wants to cover or no.

The players just play.

I think alumni like to bet on or against, if the coach says "we plan to pull starters early if we are up big".

But I don't know this, just an opinion.