NBA times are tight

[JayEgdarWho]

To me there are a couple of pieces of evidence that the BMs are, once again, tightening the noose on ATS opportunities in the NBA:

First, early in the year that Wagerline “Top 10% Consensus” thing was absolutely tearing it up. Picks that were 65% or more in that consensus were coming up winners at an insane clip for the first third of the season. Then, around early January, the tide began to turn, and turn hard. ( I have the numbers around here somewhere, and they are pretty amazing.)

Tonight -- with everyone largely on equal footing as to fatigue, travel, and other “rhythm” factors-- is a good night to see how tight the lines actually are. I keep some power ratings that are based on solely on each team's last 10 games. I wind up overriding them often in the handicapping based on fatigue, quotes in the papers, what's going on with various teams, and other “rhythm” factors. But tonight there are very few such other factors – that we know about, at least. And today’s lines are very tight to recent performance. With team-specific home-adv added in, the projected lines that I get, based on each team’s last 10 games, were:

CLE--8.9--ORL
IND--6.9—NOK
WAS—12.3—MIN
DET—8.2—ATL
MEM—5.3—TOR
MIL—1.2—NJ
SA—12.6—SEA
DAL—9.3—LAC
UTH—4.1—BOS
DEN—6.8—CHA
SAC—5.9—GS
LAX—5.2—POR

That some big favorites are laying more than the power ratings recommend is typical. Otherwise (except for the Wiz, which is the top play for tonight in my view) the lines are all within a point or two of these ratings. And of course the ratings are only mine, and far from gospel. But, once again, these are ratings based only on the last 10 games weighted by recency – so it’s a pretty fast moving scale – a couple of home losses to a weak opposition can drop a team dramatically, and vice versa.

I think it is telling, on this "fresh start" night in the L, that there is only one game where the line is seriously off from these numbers. In my view, the loosest days of the NBA season are over. Time to be careful out there.

[bigboydan]

this always seem to happen every year in the NBA right after the all-star break, so this is no real suprise to me at all.

[Alamorich]

Good stuff Jay. I always tear it up early in every sport and then BMs adjust, injuries both known and unknown become factors as well as fatigue, both mine and the players sets in. Suddenly what was once white is now black and up is now down. About that point a new sport kicks off their season and I jump ship. I think that this year I will not totally bail out on the NBA but will wait and see which teams pick up steam for the final push and which ones collapse and ride one or two into the playoffs.

[newb411breaker19]

nice call on washington winning by 12. i'm impressed. how do you come up with your power rankings. if it's i secret i understand

[JayEgdarWho]

nice call on washington winning by 12. i'm impressed. how do you come up with your power rankings. if it's i secret i understand

Plenty of folks on this board obviously know a TON about power ratings, but here's my $.02.

The precise details of my own method are either a secret or very dull, or both -- so I'll summarize:

And by the way I think it's much like every other power rating -- (and it and 8 hours sleep are simulatneously possible only thanks to Excel). Nothing patenable in the concept, to say the least.

Every team gets a value assigned for every game based on margin of victory/loss, where the opponent ranks in the NBA at the time, and home or road.

The power rating is the team's average score for the last ten games, with the most recent game weighted highest, and so on down the line.

But the most important thing is what the teams have tallied up in rating points in RELATION to each other. Really, any way that seems right to you of ranking the teams 1-30 is the main thing you need to start to do any calculation like this.

In general, what you need to determine in your own mind, through whatever research or other means seems right to you, is what is the gap (in either game points or winning percentage) between the best team and the worst team in the league on a neutral court, and what is the gap between an average winning team (#8 overall), and absolutely average team (#15-16 overall) and an average losing team (#23 overall). If you have a reliable sense of what those gaps are, then you're on your way.

I try to rank the teams by power rating 1-30 every day -- and the pointspread guide comes out of a combination of the gap between the two team's power scores and the gap between their ranking spots.

Toss in a home court adv calculation, and you are done

NOTE: there is so much OTHER stuff going on in the NBA night by night, that I have found the pointspreads from power rankings to only be good as a guidelines. I believe they are somewhat more reliable in football.