Expect Portland to end three-game skid: Trail Blazers -6
The Portland Trail Blazers, the third worst team in the NBA for bettors this season, will host the Oklahoma City Thunder, the second most profitable team in the League ATS, in the last game on the NBA schedule Friday. History says go contrarian here; we are obliging and backing the boys at Moda Center for the cover.
We theorize that Joe Public tends to overreact to early season results, creating opportunity for the objective speculator. Specifically, we think casual bettors (erroneously) extrapolate forward against the spread results of the first quarter of the season. But in reality, teams that do not cover very much early on tend to work out their kinks as the season progresses and deliver much better results versus the number later in the basketball year, particularly when facing relatively familiar competition.
Strong profits have been amassed by backing teams with no better than 40% ATS win rates when they face teams from their Conference with cover rates of 60% or better in the latter three-quarters of the regular NBA season.
This system has delivered a remarkably consistent 14% long-term return on investment, with only two seasons with a cover rate below 50% and an 11-7 ATS record so far this year.
Happy betting!!