RBD breaks down Lakers vs Kings with a betting pick rooted in handicapping models, situational angles, and late-night NBA dynamics.
LA Lakers at Sacramento Kings
Monday, January 12th
One of my most profitable plays of the past few seasons, across all sports, has been what I call the Asterisk Spot.
It’s based on two parameters.
First, a game has to qualify for my WF2 (Wrong Favorite) system.
Second, my other WF model, WF1 disagrees and says the current favorite is the correct favorite AND there’s a point spread differential of more than X amount of points between the two.
I haven’t used it much in the NFL because it had a record of 5-5, giving me no value playing ON or AGAINST the teams in the spot.
And in college football it was 6-7; again no edges to exploit.
Now that the football season is over and I’m focusing on basketball, I may be able to use it again for the NBA, college, and hopefully the WNBA too.
And tonight I’m going to put it to the test.
Without trying to sound too wonky (but probably will anyway) I actually have two Asterisk Spots.
The one noted above, and one where WF1 has a team designated as the Wrong Favorite and WF2 disagrees, with a point spread differential that is varied enough to qualify as a play.
And that’s what I have tonight.
WF1 says the Kings should be the Favorite over the Lakers.
WF2 says the Lakers are the correct Favorite.
The record for this play is 7-13, a solid 65% Fade.
The Hm/Rd subcategory breakdown has a record of 4-8 when it’s a Home team, 3-5 when it’s a Road team.
The Kings are at home tonight, giving us a play on the stronger of the two categories, a solid 67% Fade at 4-8.
So based on my models I have strong numbers that say to take LA tonight.
Let’s see if the standard stats support that.
LAL are 23-13 SU and 20-16 ATS.
Sac are 9-30 (yikes!) and 14-25 ATS (yikes again.)
Those numbers support buying the Lakers.
Let’s break it down into Hm/Rd.
LAL are 13-6 SU on the Rd, 11-8 ATS on the Rd.
Sac are 6-13 SU at Hm, 7-12 ATS.
Nothing there to deter me from putting my money down on the Lakers tonight.
The line is currently at LA -9′, so let’s look at how the Lakers do as Double Digit Favs and the Kings do as Double Digit Dogs.
The Lakers have been favored by 9′ or higher six times this season.
Their spread record is 4-2.
The Kings have been Dogs of +9′ SIXTEEN times this season (what do you expect when you’re 9-30!) and have a record of 8-8 ATS.
The Kings have managed to come in at .500 with lines like tonight, but that’s not enough to deter me from making a Laker bet when they’re hitting 67% at -9′.
From a Head to Head standpoint, these two have met twice this season.
On 10/26, the Lakers won 127-120 at Sacramento.
On 12/28, the Lakers won at home 125-101.
Average margin of victory for LA, 15.5, enough to get a cover tonight.
But we have one more factor to consider before putting in the play — the rest factor, or lack of it.
The Lakers come in well rested after having Saturday and Sunday night off.
The Kings have not been as fortunate.
They played last night, a very UNfortunate situation for them.
Because in game two of B2B’s (Back to Back) Sacramento is 1-4 SU and ATS.
But here’s where it gets really ugly for them — when playing in game two of B2B’s they’re surrendering 129 PPG.
That’s 8 points higher than their season average.
And losing by an average of 27.6 PPG.
Yes, they lose by approximately 28 PPG.
Clearly this is not a team that you want to buy when they played the night before.
For more goodness, the line is moving in my favor on this one.
LA opened at -11.
They were at -9′ when I started writing this and are down to -9 right now.
As long as the line keeps moving in my favor I might as well wait a bit more before buying it, grabbing it at -9 worse case if it starts to swing back the other way.
I’m not a fan or non-fan of any NBA team (although I imagine, like most people, I don’t like the Lakers, or their pompous leader LeBron.)
And I prefer to bet against them, so I can root against them.
But my numbers say they’re the way to go tonight.
My play:
LAL (wait to buy)
NBA record: 1-0
