Shortly after this year’s NFL season began, fellow Labber Action Networker Matthew Freedman debuted a piece breaking down how teams have performed versus their Vegas totals. This piece is the NBA equivalent.
First, let’s start with each team’s Vegas Plus/Minus, which is a metric that compares actual production in points per game (PPG) with the totals implied by Vegas data. A positive number means that a team scores more points than its implied total; a negative number, fewer points. The “For” column represents how a team did offensively versus their total; the “Against” column is how a team’s opponent did versus their total. Here are the results:
Below, I’ll dive into the offenses the betting market is underrating the most (hello, Jazz), the defenses that are outperforming expectations (I’m looking at you, Trail Blazers), and what it all means going forward.
Most Overrated, Underrated Offenses
The teams with the highest positive Plus/Minus marks in the For column are the Toronto Raptors and Utah Jazz at +2.37 and +2.36, respectively. The latter team is fairly self-explanatory: It seems the betting market has overrated how much the loss of Gordon Hayward would mean to this team’s offense. Last season the Jazz ranked 12th in offensive efficiency, averaging 107.4 points per 100 possessions. This year they rank … 12th, averaging 105.4 points per 100 possessions. They’ve regressed but still hold their same position in the league-wide rankings and have performed better than expected without Hayward. Of course, a big part of that is likely due to rookie Donovan Mitchell, who in his first year owns a +1.22 Offensive Real Plus-Minus and has used a ridiculous 29.1 percent of Utah’s possessions while on the floor. At least for this year, he’s easily the steal of the draft, where he was selected with the 13th overall pick. Franchises are changed by superstar players; they’re also changed by nailing guys outside of the top-10.
The Raptors are a different story, mostly because their roster is nearly identical to how it was constructed a season ago. The market was likely banking their offense to regress, but it actually ranks fourth in the league this season after finishing sixth a season ago. The reason is likely because of their depth: Everyone knows about the offensive firepower of Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan, but Toronto has very few negative players on its roster. Guys like Jakob Poeltl and Fred VanVleet have improved this season, and wing OG Anunoby has probably been the steal of the draft after Mitchell. It seems like being up on the NBA Draft — especially after the first couple of obvious picks — can actually help bettors gain an edge with teams and Vegas lines.
The team with the most negative Vegas Plus/Minus is the Oklahoma City Thunder, who have underperformed their Vegas implied total by an average of -4.74 — an astounding number considering no other team is below -3.02. This is probably a case of the market yet again overrating the value of Carmelo Anthony, who currently ranks 30th among PFs with a +0.42 Real Plus-Minus. That said, it’s not a black-and-white situation with these three players. In fact, nbawowy.com shows some odd splits with different combinations:
The Thunder have been at their best with Westbrook on and the other two off, but they’ve been at their worst mostly when Westbrook and Melo have shared the court. It’s tempting to oversimplify the situation — “there’s only one ball!” — but rarely do team dynamics fit into such a neat picture. This team needs more time, although it has been wise to fade the situation (OKC is a league-worst 10-20 ATS), especially since we already knew going in it would take a while for the starting unit to gel.
Most Overrated, Underrated Defenses
Looking at which teams have allowed opponents to score more or less points than their Vegas implications, it’s clear the public underrated the defenses of the Celtics, Knicks, and Trail Blazers, and overrated the defenses of the Pelicans and Bucks. Portland’s defense is perhaps the most surprising, as they rank a stout fifth this season, allowing 101.8 points/100, after ranking 21st and allowing 107.8 points/100 a season ago. Still, there were signs the betting market likely missed: In 27 games with Jusuf Nurkic on the floor last year, the Blazers posted a stellar 99.8 Defensive Rating. That would have ranked first in the league. Given some of their other defensive talent like Al-Farouq Aminu and Maurice Harkless, it should have been clear that the Blazers were going to be an above-average defense with Nurkic patrolling the paint instead of Mason Plumlee.
The Pelicans have been the most generous defense over Vegas expectations, allowing offenses to score an average of 3.49 points over their implied total. The on/off data is very telling as to why:
This season has made it clear that the most important defensive player on this team — by far — is Anthony Davis. When he’s on the floor with DeMarcus Cousins, they certainly aren’t great defensively — their 110.1 Defensive Rating would rank 28th in the league — but they’re miles better than nearly any situation with him off the floor. Also, Rajon Rondo has been atrocious, which certainly doesn’t help things. Interestingly, they’ve been very solid defensively (104.3 points/100) with Davis on and Cousins off, a situation in which Brow is likely the center and primary rim protector. That would rank sixth in the league. Given how often Davis is injured, it should be easy to leverage this data: Significantly bump up the value of opposing offenses when he misses games.
Final words
The big takeaways are that there’s certainly an edge in studying the NBA Draft early in the year, being up on young players and offseason acquisitions, and researching how injuries on a daily basis affect teams. Next week, I’ll explore the NBA’s most volatile teams in relation to Vegas expectations and how that should change our DFS and gambling decisions.
Until next time …
