NBA Betting Picks with Lines & Odds – 03/06/2019

Yesterday’s Results: 3-0
All Time Results: 16-11-1, +3 units of profit

Miami Heat +3.5 @ Charlotte Hornets – .5 unit

This pick essentially comes down to a season long disagreement I have had with the market about the quality of the Charlotte Hornets.

I don’t like them as a team because they don’t have a reliable offense outside of Kemba Walker, and Kemba is not one of the 10 most reliable offensive players in the league. Amazing player to watch and root for – but he is closer to water than he is to Diet Steph Curry. His ideal role involves playing with scorers better than him, and using his creativity and incredible shot making.to relieve pressure from _them_.  They aren’t going anywhere under their current configuration and they play like it.

Before the season I had pegged the Hornets as one of the more overrated teams in the NBA, significantly worse than average. They promptly covered 6 of 8 and 16 of their first 23 games against the Vegas spread.

Handicapping is hard. Just last week the Heat had lost 9 of 11 games & the Spurs had just lost 7 of 8. The Celtics lost 5 of 6 heading into last night & the Thunder are on a 4 game losing streak right now. How often is something irrevocably wrong with the team? And how often are they exactly as good as we think they are, and simply going through a bad stretch? My instinct is it that the ladder case is true more often than we think.

There is no definitive way of accessing signal from noise in NBA performance, just like there is not one human trait that scientists have been able to determine is 100% nature or 100% nurture. It’s always both.

When the Hornets have the best ATS record in the league for months, and I still access the team to be below league average, to be a successful handicapper I have to two hold two opposing thoughts in my mind:

1.) I have to be a humble enough to admit that I was wrong on the Hornets. Their approach may not be my favorite, but its getting far better results than I or the average bettor would have expected.

2.) I have to be confident enough to admit that I might not have been that wrong about the Hornets – if at all. Any team – despite it’s intrinsic value – can flip heads 16 out of 23 times. It happens.

Both of these mindsets will help the successful handicapper make and save money in the long run. In this case, the latter mindset – “I was right the whole time!” – has been more a little more true. Since that torrid start the Walkerettes are 13-25-2 ATS, one of the worst records in the league during that time.

Like the Hornets, the Heat are right about where I had them in my power rankings at the beginning of the season. About average, an 8th-seed-in-the-East-ish squad.  If they are indeed destined for the playoffs in Dwyane Wade’s final year, this game will go a long way toward earning it for them. They could scare the Bucks!

Boston Celtics -2.5 @ Sacramento Kings – .5 units

1. Yesterday morning I wrote that the market had wildly overreacted to the Celtics struggles, & I am betting here that it will take more than one game for the market to correct itself in assessing the Cs. Duly noted is the that the fact that this line opened up Sacramento -1 last night and now has the Celtics as -2.5 to -3 point favorites. It’s possible I’m not giving enough credit to the market for what it can learn overnight.

Thumping the Dubs last night, the Celtics looked like the talents we all thought they were: decisive, outrageously skilled, inherently unselfish, multi-dimensional, multi-faceted ballers.

2. The difficulty of a back-to-back on the road will be mitigated by the relief of last night’s performance throwing off the wolves in the media. Win or lose tonight, “What’s wrong with the Celtics/Millennials” isn’t a top-of-the-show conversation Thursday morning.  Suddenly, their collapse is over.

3. The Kings are reeling without rookie sensation Marvin Bagley, losing 5 of 6 games when he hasn’t played. The subtraction of him & the lukewarm introduction of veteran Harrison Barnes has combined to cast a pall over one of the most surprising & exciting teams of the 18-19 NBA season. Losing Bagley for the stretch run is a bummer for fans. And Barnes has not been an exciting replacement. Despite being one of the more talented offensive wings on the team, he has only a 15% usage rate since joining the Kings – about half as much as one would expect from a featured player. He isn’t meshing with the turbo tempo of the Kings the way Bagley and Buddy Hield have being doing all season. De’Aaron Fox has not yet found a way to set him up for success consistently.

4. Sacramento is 11-23 vs. teams .500 or above, 2nd worst in the Western conference after Phoenix.

Minnesota Timberwolves +5.5 @ Detroit Pistons – .25 units

1. Minnesota is a fair 5-4 ATS on the second night of a back-to-back this year. The trip from Minneapolis to Detroit is not that grueling and does not pass through a timezone.

2. The new Little Caesars Arena has not caught on yet in downtown Detroit. It sounded like there were far more Canadians than Pistons fans in their last home game against the Raptors. The Pistons results at home have been so-so.

3. At the beginning of the season, I calculated in the market that equivalent teams in the West were expected to win about 3 less games than a team in the East. Now the Timberwolves, despite a horrendous drama-filled start, find themselves only 4 games out of .500, while the Pistons are exactly .500.  All in all – I have these teams as almost even, with a slight edge to the Wolves.  With the travel for this game not overly cumbersome , I feel I’m getting a free 1.5 to 2 points here.