The NBA season starts next week!!! WOOOOOOOOOOOT!!!
If you were with me last year, you know we had a great NBA regular season as my TitanicModel went 559-514-18 for a profit of 43.5u or $4,349.70 and had a 3.8% return on your investment and that includes the 17 units of losses generated by the horrendous Titanic Model 2.0.
If you want more details on the performance last year, please check out my 2021-2022 NBA Season Performance newsletter.
Make sure you are signed up and following all my sports content as I just hit a 25-1 winner in golf!!!
My NBA Approach
Here is a quick reminder of how I approach the NBA season:
I believe in responsible betting and believe you should carry a 100u bankroll per sport1 and bet in 1% increments called units; 1% = 1 unit
I bet in 1u, 2u, and 3u increments, and the frequency of those units decreases as the risk goes up (e.g., I bet 1u a lot more often than I bet 3u).
This season I have removed 0.5u bets from my model as they have not been profitable across two years of data. That said you will see me from time to time use 0.25u and 0.5u bets to attack parlays or money lines this year.
While I follow and bet on the NBA on a daily basis, I watch fewer games than you would probably guess during the regular season as many games are not that entertaining. Part of that is also because my model does the majority of my work!
Unlike what I do for the NFL and PGA, I follow exactly what my model tells me to do each day with very few exceptions. As such, the picks columns are MUCH more straightforward with a lot less commentary each day as the bets are the model’s picks and that’s that.
Content Plans
Let me start with the bad/annoying news for you all. After I post this you will not be hearing from me with respect to the NBA for about a month. Why is that you ask?
I use the first 12-15 games for each team to compile a sample for my initial model run. Then I use the next 5-8 games per team to tweak and test my model. What that means practically is that you will not actually get NBA picks from me until most teams have played 20 games this season.
Once we get past that hurdle and my plays go “Live”, on a daily basis, around 6:45 am ET, you will receive an email that will cover:
Prior day’s results (e.g., 3-2 for -0.2u)
Summary of today’s plays (e.g., 4 plays for 5u of risk)
Strategy (e.g., how I am personally betting the content, any parlays)
Other Notes - is anything else I need to tell you like schedule changes and stuff
Plays Table - details of the plays
If you want to see an example of what that looks like, here you go.2
On a weekly basis, usually on Mondays, I will send out a performance report alongside the picks for the day; it’ll look roughly like the top section of this. I do this whether the picks are crushing it, being crushed, or anything in between. Always #Transparency.
Come Chat with us!
During the NBA season, you will find me over at the Gamblers Paradise Discord. This is a totally free discord for folks to come to hang out and chat about sports, gambling, and anything else they find interesting!
All are welcome!
Futures Bets
Okay okay, I know this is the main event. I am going to take 11 units of my bankroll and put them towards futures wagers.
As you can see from the performance newsletter I linked to above - Last year, my futures bets went 10-16-1 and returned 11.3u of profit!
Team Totals:
1u Plays
76ers over 50.5 -120
Raptors over 45.5 -150
Celtics under 53.5 -115
0.5u Plays
Nuggets over 50.5 -130
Kings over 34 -130
Warriors under 52 -115
Grizzlies under 49.5 -105
Championship odds3
NBA Title
1u on Bucks +800
0.5u on 76ers +1600
0.25u on Nuggets +1800
0.25u on Mavericks +2500
Eastern Conference Championship
0.5u on Bucks +350
0.25u on 76ers +700
Western Conference Championship
0.25u on Nuggets +850
0.25u on Mavericks +1200
Division
0.5u on 76ers +275
Other Futures I am betting:
0.5u on Chicago Bulls not making the playoffs +125
0.5u on Giannis MVP +650
0.5u on Anthony Edwards Most Improved Player +500
0.25u on Tyrese Maxey Most Improved Player +1200
0.25u on Scottie Barnes Most Improved Player +2800
0.25u on Steph over 26.3 points per game -115
0.25u on Tyronn Lue Coach of the Year +900
All of these will be tracked and will be reported on an ongoing basis thought out the season, obviously won’t be really covered that much until later in the season and it’ll roughly look like the middle section of this.
I have used this example before but if you have 10K total to bet and want to bet 3 sports, rather than betting $100 per unit on all sports I suggest you divvy up your bankroll across the sports based on your comfort or knowledge. For example, you could do 5k to NFL, 3K to NBA, and 2K to golf so your units would be $50, $30, and $20 respectively
Note, for the playoffs I was sending multiple days at once. During the regular season, I send 1 day at a time.
Note, I will likely add more to this as the season goes along, especially just before the playoffs start.