NBA picks (Jan 6): 21-19 ATS (53%), 1% ROI

Taking the Points, Betting the Spurs Cover at Lakers

23 of our 40 NBA picks so far this season have been on underdogs, with 21 of those 23 plays backing teams taking points on the road. This bias is justifiable on the grounds that road dogs have historically proven profitable bets early in the season: back to the 2004-05 season, a naive strategy of blindly backing every away underdog would have generated a 2.5% return on investment.

Seven or eight games into the season, we continue to find rationale for siding with road dogs, and are backing the Spurs plus the points at the Lakers Thursday.

Supporting this pick, we have observed that in non-division play, fading home teams laying more than a bucket after one or more consecutive ATS losses has proven consistently profitable.

This system has suffered only five losing seasons since 2004-05 and is 14-6 this season.

Happy betting!!