No matter how much do they practice, the NBA players are still human. Well, the evidence don’t speak in the favor of this claim for some. But most of them are. And humans tend to get tired and when they do get tired, their performance takes a dip. Spikes and dips are very important in sports betting, but are not always easy to recognize before it’s too late.
On our business, we often have to anticipate how a certain team will respond to various factors that might affect an outcome of a game or a string of games. The best way to do so is to analyze similar scenarios looking both as the general statistical averages and the specific situations, the micro models.
NBA league efforts to minimize the schedule congestion
We’ve witnessed an increase in players’ sports longevity over the course of the last decade. It’s a results of a higher general awareness on how to protect athlete’s body with proper diet, training and playing management, tissue recovery and sleep programs and other various ways. As the sports medicine experts have joined franchises, it also raised players own awareness and they are now much smarter in what they do and eat in their personal time during the season and also during the summer break.
The pressure increased on the NBA league as well, mostly considering packed up portions of team schedules where teams had to play many back-to-back sets or the dreaded 5-games-in-7-nights. The league listened and stretched the season in each of the previous three seasons. Regular season starts earlier, there’s a full week of rest during the All-Star break and the average number of back-to-back sets is downed by about 20 percent. It is possible that the schedule makers will find a way to lower the burden further in the next seasons.
Additionally, teams have been more open to resting top players by simply not playing them for a night. San Antonio was infamously penalized for it just a few years back, but the NBA now has no issues with helping players health.
Call me insensitive, but I don’t like this policy. For a selfish reason too. The rarer the fatigue affected games are, the fewer moneymaking opportunities for the punters. There’s no clear recipe on how to earn money betting on such games, but what’s sure is that it increases the uncertainty in games outcome and allows us to beat the mighty books models by carefully looking at different situations the teams encounter during the season. Of course, there’s still plenty of fatigue involved, so let’s take a closer look on the types you should be aware of.
Travel
When former NBA star Antoine Walker was forced to play in the Development League after he had spent all of his money, the worst thing he claimed is, was taking long bus travels. NBA teams have much better conditions, of course. Few teams even fly on private luxury jets of their owners. There’s a hidden machinery that takes care of everything – check-ins, luggage, equipment, everything really.
Still, the players fly so frequently that it’s a big stress on their bodies. They change time zones, altitudes and climates. They also don’t land in arena. Some of the airports (Salt Lake City, Denver) are very distant to where the players actually stay and play. NBA teams go on lengthy road trips that make them travel thousands of miles in few days. It can clearly affect players’ performance. How to recognize it?
There are some more obvious signs to keep an eye on. Always monitor travel news. NBA is played during winter months so there’ll always be some flight delays up north or on the East coast. It’s stressful and draining. NBA players are creatures of routines, so messing them up can have instant impact. Mind the mileage in previous days, as well as changing of the time zones – particularly if a team is travelling to the west. Also, important players with known back problems often have issues on long flights.
Schedule
Public bettors tend to overreact to back-to-back sets due to the fact that they are not sure how much such a set is really worth. It’s no rocket science to calculate it, so I’m not revealing any secret when I say that, in general, team playing on the second night of the back-to-back set should be given an extra +1.5 in spread points. This average is slightly decreasing recently, but is a good base number to start from. You should also differentiate a basic b2b set from playing fourth time in five nights. This arrangement gives opposition an average advantage of slightly over 2.0 spread points. Five games in seven days equals to almost 2.5 spread points of a handicap.
Games played on consecutive nights most frequently occur away from home (about 80-85 percent of the time, depending on a season). Even when the team play the second game at home, it usually involves travel in between two games, so it’s quite challenging for the players. Still, don’t apply this number automatically. Sometimes teams blow out the opposition (or get blown out) and keep their main guys on the bench for significant time during the first game.
Sometimes an overtime or multiple overtimes are played. First games can be draining due to physicality of the opponent or drag due to various reasons. Opposition styles might significantly vary. A dramatic adjustment in styles can cause a team to feel mentally exhausted before the second game even gets rolling. Then there’s accounting if the other team is rested or not.
Depth chart
NBA players like to know their roles. Some are more comfortable than others when pulled out of their comfort zones, so the coaches tend to utilize much the same rotation or announce the change. This has a dual effect. In an attempt to minimize the fatigue imposed dip from their main players, the coaches change the rotations and give lesser players more court time, resulting in overall dip in team performance. But also, it allows us to predict if a team that only plays 7 or 8 players a night will play worse than usual. Injuries can have the same impact. Sometimes a team gets bit by an injury bug and has only 7 or 8 healthy bodies at the wrong time and has to play their best players major minutes.
And don’t forget the age. Veteran teams such as Memphis Grizzlies, or individual players over 35 years of age don’t take congested games as well as youthful Sixers or highly athletic players still on rookie contracts.
It’s not that complicated
Considering the number of the basic factors, you might think that’s it’s overly complicated for you to keep track of all those things, but it’s actually just a fine tuning of your base number and once you progress through enough of the games with the correct thinking, you’ll do it automatically. Say your numbers say that you should ask for a +6.5 -105 target on a team and you spot that they are a veteran team that travelled quite a bit this week. Simply adjust your asking price to +6.5 +100 (or more depending on the severity of the issue).
On the other side, don’t give your bet as much value if the other side might have tired players. If you would ask for -4.5 -105 on the jolly in the same hypothetical game, strongly consider moving for just a point or two, not more. This way you’re guarding yourself from the dreaded positive betting bias.
Finally, if your bookie offers live betting on the game you are looking to bet on, try making use of it. If the fatigue is the deciding factor, players will only get more tired as the game progresses, so it makes perfect sense to put your wager during the 2nd or 3rd quarter if a good opportunity arises.
