NBA Handicapping Articles

NBA Handicapping: Miami Heat ATS Trends
by George Monroy - 2/8/2013

The Miami Heat are currently in the middle of their first title defense and are being led by their superstar LeBron James, who is having another juggernaut of a season. “The King” is currently averaging 26.8 points, seven assists, and 8.2 rebounds per game and is leading the league in player efficiency rating with a 30.64 mark. If a gambler did not pay close attention to the NBA ATS standings, it would be fair to assume that the Heat were blowing out opponents and covering most of their spreads. And it we did assume as much, we would be wrong. The Miami Heat’s ATS record has been under .500 all season and is one of the worst in the entire NBA.

Rudy Gay NBA Trade Props and Picks
by Alan Matthews - 2/7/2013

The Feb. 21 trade deadline is two weeks from the day of this writing, but the Memphis Grizzlies and Toronto Raptors kicked off the swap meet last week when the Grizzlies essentially executed a salary dump by shipping Rudy Gay to the Raptors. Memphis ended up with Detroit Pistons small forward Tayshaun Prince and Raptors young forward Ed Davis (and a few other minor pieces), while Toronto got Gay and shipped point guard Jose Calderon to Detroit.

NBA Handicapping Impact of Rudy Gay Trade
by Trevor Whenham - 2/7/2013

The dust has settled on the Rudy Gay trade, and the principle players — Gay to Toronto, Jose Calderon to Detroit and Tayshaun Prince and Ed Davis to Memphis — have started to settle into their new homes. It is far too early to have a long-term sense of the winners and losers in this deal, but a week after it happened we have enough distance from it to give it analysis without emotion.

NBA Handicapping: Strong Road Teams
by Trevor Whenham - 2/6/2013

Winning games on the road in the NBA is hard. Very, very hard. Do you know how many teams in the league have a better road winning percentage than they have at home? Just one — the Bulls. On the other hand, there are some pretty good teams that are just terrible when they don’t sleep in their own beds. Indiana, for example, is 20-3 at home but just 10-16 on the road. Denver is 21-3 and 10-15. Utah drops from 18-5 to 9-17. Not all teams are that bad, but most suffer a fairly significant drop off.

NBA Totals Betting: Handicapping Trends Report
by Aaron Smith - 1/31/2013

We haven’t hit the all-star break quite yet, but the NBA is now past the midway point of the season in terms of games played. At Doc’s Sports, we like to take a closer look inside the data to help find valuable betting trends. The bi-weekly NBA Hot and Cold Report helps keep bettors up to speed on hot and cold teams as far as covering the number. Totals are another popular way to bet on the NBA, so we are now tracking which teams are trending “over” and which teams are trending “under” versus the posted total. Please note that all statistics used in this article are for games played from Jan. 17 through Jan. 30.

NBA Handicapping: How Free Throwing Shooting Impacts ATS Records
by George Monroy - 1/31/2013

Free throw shooting is a key aspect of any NBA team’s success throughout the season. Shots from the “charity stripe” — as they are commonly known — can make or break any team during the course of a game. Free throws are, essentially, two free shots and must be taken advantage of, especially late in a game, when teams are looking to foul in hopes of trading one point for two.

NBA ATS Report: Four Teams that Win but Do Not Cover the Spread
by George Monroy - 1/30/2013

One of the most frustrating aspects of sports betting is having a team win a game but not cover the spread. It almost feels like we, as gamblers, are being cheated. If a team cannot muster up the energy to cover the spread, then they shouldn’t get the satisfaction of winning the game, right? I admit, such logic seems a bit spiteful, but that is only because having a team get a victory while failing to cover the spread hurts so darn much.

NBA Handicapping Impact of Rondo’s Season-Ending Injury
by Trevor Whenham - 1/28/2013

Sunday was not a good day to be a Boston Celtics fan. In fact, it likely sucked. Sure, they got a surprising, thrilling win over the Heat, and they got to pretend for one night that Ray Allen made the wrong decision. That didn’t matter, though, as soon as they learned that Rajon Rondo’s hamstring injury he thought he suffered Friday night was actually a torn ACL that will keep him out for the season.

NBA Betting Trends: Hot and Cold Teams Against the Point Spread
by Aaron Smith - 1/25/2013

We’re sitting at almost exactly the midpoint of the NBA season. There are some big surprises to the upside in the league, and there have been some major disappointments. Who could have ever expected that the Golden State Warriors would be nearly 10 games ahead of the Los Angeles Lakers in the standings halfway through the season? That’s why they play the games instead of going by the perceived talent on paper. Who’s streaking and who is slumping right now? Doc’s Sports will be posting an NBA Hot and Cold Report every two weeks this year to help you stay ahead of the game. Please note that statistics in this initial report are from games played between Jan. 10 and Jan. 24.

NBA Handicapping: Closer Look at Orlando Magic ATS
by George Monroy - 1/25/2013

Last summer’s high-profile trade that sent Dwight Howard to Los Angeles was supposed to be the straw that broke the Orlando Magic’s back and the one that sent the franchise into the lottery with the rest of the NBA bottom-feeders. And, while the Magic are certainly one of the worst teams in the league with a record of 14-27, they have been doing far better in the one area that truly matters to sports bettors — against the spread.

2013 NBA MVP Odds and Updated Betting Predictions
by George Monroy - 1/24/2013

The race for the NBA MVP award has been heating up over the last few weeks. What started as a one-man race at the beginning of the season has turned into a closer competition than most experts would have predicted. LeBron James was supposed to run away with the award, but at this point in the season there are no less than three legitimate MVP contenders and a few others that are showing excellent value. Here is quick look at a few of the top candidates in the NBA MVP race along with some odds and updated predictions.

Chicago Bulls ATS Record: Taking a Closer Look
by George Monroy - 1/18/2013

NBA records can be deceiving at times — especially to sports bettors, who are really only concerned with how often a team is covering the spread. Just by taking a quick glance at the NBA standings, we see that the Miami Heat and Chicago Bulls have two of the best records in the east, while the Washington Wizards and Orlando Magic have two of the worst. But, you might be surprised to find out, the Wizards and Magic have better against the spread records than both the Heat and Bulls.

NBA Handicapping: Teams Better than Record Indicates
by Trevor Whenham - 1/18/2013

Unsophisticated NBA bettors will assume that the record of a team is a good indicator of how good a team is — or how they are likely to perform the rest of the way through the season. That’s not always the case. In fact, the record of a team has the potential to be extremely misleading. Here’s a look at four NBA teams with records that aren’t necessarily indicative of what we can expect from them going forward — of what the teams really are, in other words.

NBA Totals Betting: Handicapping Trends Report
by Aaron Smith - 1/17/2013

The NBA season is just about halfway completed. Several teams are exactly halfway done with their 82-game schedules, while others are just short of the halfway mark. At Doc’s Sports, we like to take a closer look inside the trends to help find valuable betting angles. The bi-weekly NBA Hot and Cold Report helps keep bettors up to date regarding the hot and cold teams as far as covering the number. Totals are another popular way to bet on the NBA, so we are now tracking which teams are trending “over” and which teams are trending “under” versus the posted total. Please note that all statistics used in this article are for games played from Jan. 3 through Jan. 16.

2013 NBA Finals Contenders Odds and Analysis
by George Monroy - 1/15/2013

This year’s NBA season has been moving faster than a Denver Broncos playoff meltdown (sorry Peyton). It seems like only yesterday the Los Angeles Lakers were panicking five games into the season and handing coach Mike Brown his walking papers. But, if we were to take a our attention off of the all consuming NFL season for one second and have a look around sports landscape, we would notice that the NBA is so far from the beginning of the season that we might not even know what’s going on anymore.

Trail Blazers at Nuggets Picks and NBA Betting Odds
by Alan Matthews - 1/14/2013

The Portland Trail Blazers will be quite relieved once Tuesday night’s game at Denver is over. The Blazers will have concluded one of their toughest four-game stretches of the season. They started it with a 92-90 home win last Thursday over the Miami Heat, outscoring Miami 24-10 in the final eight minutes and ending LeBron James’ streak of 20-point games at 54 straight.

NBA Betting and Handicapping: Scouting the Week Ahead
by Alan Matthews - 1/14/2013

Many people expected the Philadelphia 76ers to be a contender in the Eastern Conference this season. After all, the Sixers pushed the Boston Celtics to the limit in last year’s conference semifinals. And Philly was involved in the offseason’s biggest trade, essentially giving up Andre Iguodala and picks for Lakers center Andrew Bynum. With Dwight Howard going West to L.A. in that deal, Bynum was expected to be the East’s best center.

Heat at Kings Picks and NBA Betting Odds
by Dave Schwab - 1/12/2013

The Miami Heat will remain on the West Coast this Saturday night for the third game of an extended six-game road trip with a matchup against the Sacramento Kings at the Sleep Train Arena. This inter-conference contest is slated to get underway at 10 p.m. (ET), and the game will be available on NBA League Pass.

NBA Betting Trends: Hot and Cold Teams Against the Point Spread
by Aaron Smith - 1/11/2013

The long, dark days of misery are about to be over for the Washington Wizards. Well, that’s a lie of course — things are going to be miserable for quite a while yet because this team just isn’t very good. They should be quite a bit better starting Saturday, though. That’s when point guard John Wall, the first pick in the 2010 draft, is expected to play his first game of the season as long as he remains pain free until then. Whenever a player of the caliber of Wall — and the public appeal — returns to action, handicappers are in for a headache when it comes to figuring out what to expect and how those expectations compare to the expectations of the public.

NBA Handicapping: Best Team in the Western Conference
by Trevor Whenham - 1/11/2013

There is a three-team race emerging in the Western Conference of the NBA this year, and for the first time in a long time one of those teams definitely isn’t the Lakers. The L.A. Clippers, Oklahoma City Thunder, and San Antonio Spurs are all within a game of each other in the standings. There is a good chance that one of those three will ultimately win the conference. The question, though, is which team is the best? Let’s take a look from several perspectives: