[Jay Edgar]

A Saturday-night situation will be there in the extreme: 5 of the 8 games on the card feature a road team in a back-to-back against a more rested home team.

Among the NBA projects on the to-do list is trying to quantify more precisely the effect of back-to-back play on winning percentage. The subcategories are daunting -- at home or on the road, off a win or off a loss, facing a rested opponent or a BxB opponent? My method would be to look at it in the SU context rather than the ATS context, because I am looking for the right adjustment to make to my estimation of each team's chances of winning the game SU. (The estimated pointspread is formula-derived from the estimated winning percentage.)

(A note on the team power ratings that underlie the rankings, One of the off-season adjustments to the formula was to decrease the significance of the most recent game in the team's power rating -- based on my thought that the next game is often an opposite reaction to the most recent game. So, rather than being the largest component in the team's power rating, the most recent game is now equal to the average of the last 5 games in importance. The second-to-last game is the most important single game in the power rating formula by a small margin.)

RESULTS
Friday, 7-6 +0.60u
YTD, 45-43, +5.67u

RANKINGS (by "last 10 games" power rating)
1 SAN, 2 DET, 3 UTH, 4 LAC, 5 HOU
6 CHI, 7 SAC, 8 WAS, 9 CLE, 10 NJ

11 ATL, 12 PHX, 13 MIL, 14 SEA, 15 MIA
16 MEM, 17 NOK, 18 IND, 19 GS, 20 DAL

21 MIN, 22 POR, 23 DEN, 24 LAX, 25 ORL
26 TOR, 27 PHI, 28 BOS, 29 NY, 30 CHA

EDGAR LINES for 11.11.06
(FAVORITE-POINTS-MONEYLINE-DOG)
SEA 3.8/156 over ATL
CLE 6.2/229 over BOS
SAN 7.7/317 over NY
MIN 3.8/156 over ORL
MIL 3.1/139 over UTH
CHI 5.7/198 over IND
PHX 3.9/157 over MEM
GS 1.8/118 over DET

MONEYLINE SYSTEM STRIKE PRICES
(equals approximately a 4.5% difference from Edgar ML)
ATL @ -127, SEA @ +193
CLE @ -182, BOS @ +294
SAN @ -245, NY @ +426
MIN @ -127, ORL @ +193
MIL @ -113, UTH @ +171
CHI @ -159, IND @ +250
PHX @ -128, MEM @ +195
GS @ +104, DET @ +144

I'm traveling all weekend but cautiously optimistic about my ability to post from the Unknown Quantity Motor Lodge.

[Jay Edgar]

Numbers are up.
GL

[Jay Edgar]

Jeez, I thought Portland lost by a point. But no -- every scoreboard and their mother had it backwards!!:


Numbers above are now corrected and good to go.
That 2-point swing did have an impact in the rankings.
Good to see that the thing is designed so that who wins the game makes a substantial difference.

[moses millsap]

Jeez, I thought Portland lost by a point. But no -- every scoreboard and their mother had it backwards!!:


Numbers above are now corrected and good to go.
That 2-point swing did have an impact in the rankings.
Good to see that the thing is designed so that who wins the game makes a substantial difference.

You didn't see the ending to that one? They called a foul and Randolph hit 1 of 2 FTs with 2 seconds left, then Peja got the rebound and launched it with one arm from 3/4s of the court away and it almost went in, hit the back of the rim if I saw it correctly

[Jay Edgar]

No, I was semi-falling asleep and following along on a sad-sack collection of websites. ESPN, CBS, Yahoo -- nobody had it right.

Whomever it was that managed to get inside of Zach Randolph's noggin' and turn things around deserves a medal.

[isetcap]

Whomever it was that managed to get inside of Zach Randolph's noggin' and turn things around deserves a medal.

That is Zach Randolph this year. He is on a mission and it's scary.

[Jay Edgar]

picks
Bos E +445
Bos +9.5 -105
Ny E +850
Ny +13 -104
Orl E +185
Orl +5 -107
Mil E -107
Mil-1 -101
Ind E +245
Ind +6 +104
Mem +11 -105
Mem E +560
Det +3.5 -107
Det E +140

[moses millsap]

The Celtics are looking good off the bat, but no lead is safe in the NBA.

[Jay Edgar]

5 of the 8 games on the card feature a road team in a back-to-back against a more rested home team.

Those teams were 3-2 (with a bad beat) ATS, and 1-4 (with a 1-pt loss) SU. Which is not bad.

[moses millsap]

Good picks though JE, just bad luck with both the Celtics and the Pacers last night, but I just saw Memphis actually covered that number? LOL. 7 points for the Suns in the 4th?