NBA Handicapping Articles

Here are the current NBA articles and how to tips from Maddux Sports.

NBA Betting Adjustments - Post All Star Break

Betting on the NBA changes in subtle but significant ways after the all-star break each season. You still have to do the same things you have done all year - pick the winners and find the value - but what goes into determining where that value is can be somewhat different. Here are six ways that betting on the NBA can change after the all-star break: ...

How to Assess NBA Playoff Races

Each year in the NBA there always seems to be an intense race for the last couple of playoff spots in each conference. Sometimes the fight is among very good teams, while other times it’s just lousy teams moving towards an inevitable, quick loss in the first round of the playoffs. Either way, these races are of interest to handicappers. When teams are fighting for a playoff spot they will face more pressure than they have faced up to that point in the season. Their fans will be engaged, the media scrutiny will be high, and every game will matte ...

How to Bet on Back to Back NBA Games

Several times each year teams in the NBA are forced to play two games on consecutive nights. That situation can be particularly challenging for teams - they are typically played on the road, so teams face tough travel on a short schedule between challenging games. It rarely brings out the best in teams and players, and it can really make some teams look awful. For bettors these games can create a headache. You can’t simply assume that the team playing the back-to-back will be in rough shape in the second game and will find it hard to cover. If ...

Exploiting Betting Public Love of Aging NBA Stars

Public NBA bettors love superstars, so they will make their betting decisions based largely on the reputations of the superstars on the court. Unless there is a significant reason to do so the public is very slow to adjust those reputations to reflect current reality. That means that if a superstar is slowing fading due to age the public isn’t likely to respond to that fading as quickly as they should. They could then be making betting decisions based more on what the player was capable of when he was younger than what he is actually capable of ...

Checking Out NBA Player Prop Betting

NBA player prop betting is getting more and more popular. There are several different types of player props that are available to bet depending on the book you use. While each type of bet obviously needs to be looked at slightly differently there is, at the core, similarities between all player prop bets. That means that there are some things that are important to consider regardless of the specific type of bet you are making. Here are six things to keep in mind: ...

Subtle Betting Differences for NBA Holiday Games

When you think of Christmas day what do you think of? For me it’s trees, presents, family, turkey, and obviously basketball. The NBA owns Christmas day, They are often the only game in town, and some of the best and most eagerly anticipated matchups of the year are scheduled for the big day. It’s brilliant marketing for the league, and a brilliant addition to great day. Handicapping the Christmas day games and the other holiday games that the NBA plays is a little bit different than handicapping a normal game on a normal day. Ultimately they ar ...

Indicators to Find Consistency in NBA Play

Consistency is the best friend of sports bettors. When a team consistently plays in the same style and with the same effort then it can be relatively easy to bet on them because you know what you can expect from them. When a team lacks consistency, though, then you are forced to guess what type of effort the team is likely to show before you can determine how that expected effort stacks up against the opponent. That’s too much guessing for a winning bet. Here are six indicators of how consistent an NBA team is, and how easy they are to trust as ...

Figuring Out How New NBA Coaches Will Perform

Being a coach in the NBA is not a great job to have if you value job security. There is a whole lot of turnover every year, and coaches often don’t last in a job for very long if they don’t get immediate results. When a new coach starts the season in the NBA handicappers need to quickly get a sense of how effective they should be in their first few games of the year. The betting public is going to base their expectations in these early games under a new coach on assumptions and reputation, so the more accurate your assessment can be the better ...

How to Analyze Big NBA Wins

In the NBA there are a few different tiers of teams each season. There are those teams that just aren’t very good. They aren’t going to make the playoffs, or if they do they won’t be above .500 and they won’t be particularly competitive. There are teams that are pretty good. They’ll win more games than they lose, and they will be fun to watch, but they aren’t likely to win the NBA Championship unless something extreme happens. Then there are the elite teams - those that have more talent than everyone else, and which are very likely to be among ...

Determining If New NBA Coach Will Help

There are few jobs in the world less secure than head coach of an NBA team. Teams change coaches seemingly on a whim, so it is very common to see several teams make a coaching change during each season. Often times a team will experience a bump in play - and resulting wins - after they make their change. Most times these bumps in play don’t last long, but occasionally they do. If bettors can have a sense of what is likely to happen after a coaching change they can be in a strong position to benefit financially. Here are six factors to consider ...

Estimating Betting Impact for Loss of a NBA Star

When it comes to superstars in the NBA there is no such thing as loyalty. If LeBron James can leave Cleveland then it’s unreasonable to assume that any star will stick with one team for their entire career. It does happen, but movement - either through free agency or trades - has just become a fact of life in this superstar driven league these days. When a superstar does change teams it can have a huge impact both on the team he joins and the one he leaves, and handicappers need to work hard to determine both impacts. Today I want to look at th ...

Betting Implications for ESPN & TNT NBA Games

There are two kinds of NBA games - those that are nationally televised, and those that aren’t. The ones that are on TV - like on ESPN or TNT - often feature more popular teams playing more interesting matchups. Combine that with the added attention the media gives a televised game and you have a game that is potentially quite different for handicappers to deal with than a normal one. Here are five ways in which nationally televised games could be different for bettors: ...

Adjusting for In-Season NBA Free Agents

Each year in the NBA it seems like we are seeing more and more players signed as free agents during the regular season. There are a number of ways a guy can become a free agent in the middle of a season - if they have been playing in another country or as a free agent in the D-League, if they were free agents before the season but weren’t signed or were injured, or if they have been bought out of their contract by a team. What’s striking is not just that this is happening a lot, but that a lot of the players that are being signed are guys with ...

Lookout for NBA Preseason Warning Signs

The preseason in most major sports isn’t particularly illuminating, and the NBA is no exception. There are some things that smart handicappers can learn from watching the preseason, though. That can be very helpful when the regular season starts and the games really matter - to the teams and to your bankroll. Here are five warning signs in preseason play that a team might not be ready to perform up to expectations when the regular season starts: ...

Handling NBA Games With Big Point Spreads

NBA bettors are regularly faced with massive point spreads in games when a heavy favorites plays a seemingly outmatched team. A point spread that big makes the expected winner clear, but it can be a real challenge to decide if the favorite is worth being so heavily favored. When a team is a heavy favorite it can be easy to believe that they are all but unbeatable and not look beyond that. Sometimes heavy favorites don’t win games, though, and often times they don’t cover the spread. If you are drawn to betting NBA games with heavy favorites you ...

What To Look For When Good NBA Teams Struggle

Every year in the NBA there seems to be a small handful of good teams that disappoint early in the season. They enter the year with high expectations - to make the playoffs in style and make some noise when they get there. After a significant number of games have passed, though, the team is not looking anything like they are expected to. They are losing games they should win, and playing unlike they should be playing. Sometimes teams are able to shake off these slow starts, while other times they are indicators of significant problems that are ...

Handicapping NBA Matchups Between Elite Teams

One of the big challenges when handicapping the NBA is trying to find a winner in a game with a small point spread when both teams are elite and well matched. It’s easy to get a sense of how a game will turn out when there is a big difference is skill, motivation or health, but you really have to have your handicapping pencil sharpened when you are trying to pick the winner between good teams. Here are seven questions to ask when looking at these tough games: ...

Assess Impact of NBA Player After Not Being Traded

Every time a trade deadline passes in a sport that trades a lot of players around I’m obviously interested to see what players are traded and what impact that will have on their new teams. As a handicapper, though, I’m almost as interested in the players that don’t get moved and the deals that don’t get made. Every year the intensity of trade deadline coverage increases online and on TV. That means that more players are mentioned as possible - or even likely trade targets - and they hear more about it from more places. Time and again we hear ab ...

NBA Playoff Betting Mistakes - First Round

The NBA playoffs can provide great drama and excellent betting opportunities. Because of that there are a lot of people who are very excited to see the playoffs arrive, and very eager to bet on the games once they are here. If you are too eager to jump in and bet the first round playoff games, though, you can make some simple but costly mistakes. Thankfully, these mistakes are easy to avoid if you are aware of them. Here are six common ones that stand out: ...

Avoiding NBA Preseason Overreaction

The general betting public is better at one thing than all others - overreacting to situations. They will regularly assume the worst about situations, and have an incredible ability to make mountains out of molehills. The NBA preseason isn’t typically taken as seriously by teams as the regular season, so there are all sorts of things that the public can overreact to. Here are five things in the NBA preseason that can seem to be a whole lot more significant than they actually are: ...

Predict NBA Teams Being Better ATS Than Record

As an NBA bettor there are few things more thrilling to find than a team that is playing much better than their record indicates. That often means that the team has a record against the spread (ATS) that is significantly better than their record. The general betting public is driven by two big things - the record of teams and the media attention those teams are getting. When a team doesn’t have a great record, then, they are not going to get a lot of attention and the public isn’t likely to bet on them heavily. That means that the lines for tha ...

Handicapping NBA Teams With 3 Games in 3 Nights

It’s not particularly common in the NBA, but teams will occasionally be subjected to the grueling challenge of playing three games on three consecutive nights. It’s an incredibly tough challenge - especially because at least one of the games - and often more - is typically played on the road. If you were to ask a group of casual NBA bettors how teams would perform in the third of these games I suspect most would guess that the teams would struggle badly in these situations. That seems like a logical conclusion, but the problem is that it isn’t ...

Judging NBA Teams After Big Overhauls

The pressure to win in the NBA is intense, so it is not at all uncommon to see teams - even serious contenders - significantly overhaul their team from the end of one season to the beginning of the next. Teams will frequently go into a season with more than half of their starters being new to the team. Because trades are so difficult to make in the NBA and frequently involve a lot of players to balance contracts changes in the starting lineup will frequently include significant changes in the supporting cast as well. ...

Dealing With NBA Teams Surprisingly Fast Starts

Every year in the NBA there are a couple of teams that get off to a surprising start. On paper they don’t look like much, but for the first few weeks of the season they seem to have forgotten how to lose. That can create a real headache for bettors. Is the team going to keep winning, or are they going to crash back to earth? Are they better than everyone thought, or are they just getting lucky? Will the wins keep coming for a while, or is the party about to end soon? Here are six factors to consider when trying to decode whether these teams are ...

Handling NBA Teams With Surprisingly Slow Starts

If you have bet the NBA for a while, or even just followed it as a fan, then this has certainly happened to you - you have had very high hopes and expectations for a team heading into the season but they come out of the gate totally flat. Their best players have not played like stars, they have lost games that they should have won, and they certainly don’t find themselves on top of the standings. If you really liked the team heading into the season then that faith can be expensive after a slow start like this. Before you lose too much on them y ...

Betting On NBA Teams With Unhappy Superstar

It has become an all-too familiar story in the NBA - superstar players who have grown unhappy with their situation and demand a trade in the middle of the season. Carmelo Anthony, Deron Williams, Dwight Howard - the list of all-stars that have held their teams ransom is long and impressive. These situations can get ugly, and they never seem to resolve themselves quickly and painlessly. That means that handicappers need to think about the impact of the standoffs on the player and their teams, and what that means for the hunt for value. Here are ...

Evaluating NBA Teams With Young Point Guards

The hardest position to play well in the NBA is point guard. They have to command the play, set the tone, avoid mistakes, and make their team work. It used to be that point guard was a position that young players have been able to ease into. Recently, though, it has become more and more common to see a rookie start, or at least play significant minutes, right out of the gate. For bettors this creates a challenge. Sometimes a young guy can be a real detriment running an offense. Other times, though, he performs just fine. You need to be able to ...

Picking Preseason NBA Title Contenders

When the NBA season is about to get underway the attention of bettors inevitably is drawn towards the NBA Championship futures odds. For astute bettors these can be a great way to find some nice profit that can fatten the bankroll substantially. They are also a really easy way to make terrible bets that tie up your money without offering any chance of a value-filled profit. The trick, obviously, is to find the right bets and avoid the wrong ones. At the heart of that there is one obvious but often overlooked truth - there is no point in making ...

Properly Understanding NBA Home Court Advantage

Home court advantage is particularly significant in the NBA. From year to year home teams win about 60 percent of games that are played, so there is undeniably a boost to be had from playing at home. The advantage is almost universal as well - there was only one team in the 2010-11 regular season that won more games on the road than at home. For handicappers the home court advantage is very important to consider. It’s also a concept that is widely misunderstood. ...

Signs of NBA Teams Declining Down the Stretch

Every year in the NBA there are a few things that we can be sure to see. One of those is that there will be several teams that play worse - often significantly worse - after the all-star break than they did before the break. If bettors can spot teams that are likely to perform much worse late in the season then they have been playing then they can make nice money betting against those teams and taking advantage of the value that could be available. Here are five indicators that a team could struggle down the stretch of the NBA season : ...

Early Spotting of Underrated NBA Teams

Early in the NBA season one of the best ways for smart handicappers to cash in is to have a sense of which teams are underrated by the general public. There will always be a few teams that don’t get nearly the respect they deserve. The odds for those teams in their early games will be far more generous than they should be as a result - especially if those teams open up against strong public teams. It’s obviously an inexact science to spot which teams are underrated. There are some general rules which can point you in the right direction, though ...

Spotting Troubled NBA Teams Headed to Playoffs

Every year in the NBA there is at least one team that looks good during the regular season that just doesn’t perform once the postseason starts. Once they are eliminated you can often look back and see the signs that pointed to what happened. If a bettor could spot those signs before the postseason starts, though, then they could really be in position to capitalize - especially if the public really likes the team in trouble. Here are five potential warning signs down the stretch of the regular season that an NBA team could be in trouble once th ...

Finding Short Term Value Right After NBA Trades

Bettors spend a lot of time looking at the long term impact of trades in the NBA. It’s important, though, to consider what the short term impact of trades are on teams. I’m talking about the first game or two played right after a deal is made. The trade is new, and the players and teams have to adjust to what has happened. Here are seven factors to consider when looking for short term value after NBA trades: ...

Finding Value When NBA Elite Teams Are Losing

Every year in the NBA we see elite teams go into a slump later on in the season. These are teams that have been playing very well, are certainly going to the playoffs, and are a threat to win it all once they get there. For some reason, though, they hit a stretch of games where it almost seems as if they have forgotten how to win. Most times the streak ends. Sometimes it is a sign of more significant, enduring problems. For bettors, two things are important - why is the slump happening, and when is it likely to end? By answering those two quest ...

Gaining Insights When NBA Teams Don't Trade

The media and fans love to speculate about trades in the NBA. It’s a constant source of entertainment and endless speculation. The problem is, though, that because of the salary cap restrictions trades aren’t nearly as common as people will like them to be. That means that every year at the NBA trade deadline there are players who were heavily rumored to be on the move that don’t end up being traded. For astute bettors the game or two right after that happens should be particularly interesting. the lack of a trade can have a big impact on a tea ...

Understanding Why Big NBA Favorites Can Letdown

Big favorites in the NBA are far from uncommon. There is a massive gap between the best teams in the league and those in the cellar, so double digit point spreads in the NBA are far from uncommon. Needless to say, though, the favorites don’t always cover the spread, and they don’t even win these seemingly lopsided games all the time. Sometimes a big favorite just isn’t ready to put forward a complete effort in a game, and their inferior effort isn’t enough to get them the win. If you can spot heavy favorites that may not be ready to play to the ...

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