Forget Howard; Lin impacting NBA futures
Chad Millman
ESPN INSIDER
This was going to be a column about Dwight Howard. He is an excellent player. A potential Hall of Fame talent. He is very popular, has lots of Twitter followers, has been on the cover of our magazine several times and many, many fans in Orlando worry that he will soon be a former citizen of their fine city. Like Timberlake and Gosling or XTina or the dudes from that show about the making of the boy band with the guy who eventually had a show about coming back after the boy band flamed out, Howard is destined to see that his star cannot shine bright enough inside the Magic Kingdom.
I was supposed to speculate about where he will go and examine how that is affecting the NBA's futures market. To be honest, right now, Howard is as relevant to bookmakers and NBA futures as I am, which is to say not at all.
The talk of where Peyton Manning may end up is, after a couple weeks of stagnancy, impacting bookmakers more than any trade talk about Howard. Miami Dolphins prices have dropped from 50-1 to 30-1. The Cardinals have dropped from 25-1 to 5-1. Even the Seattle Seahawks, a long shot, have gone from unlisted to 10-1. Anyone who Manning might have thought about while under the knife for one of his four-and-counting surgeries is getting action.
But no one is moving the futures of the Bulls or the Lakers or even the Nets just because there are rumors circulating that Howard might end up there. And if he does eventually get traded, it's only New Jersey, which is in triple digits to win the title, that will be dramatically impacted. How much shorter can the Bulls go?
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In general, NBA futures are trickier than NFL futures. In pro football, every team gets a little action because every fan believes the worst team last year can be the best team next year. The Giants were 20-1 when the season started and got a nice amount of looks. At one point during the season they were 75-1 and still took a little bit of money. But the parity in the NFL has not translated to the NBA, and a new collective bargaining agreement isn't going to change that.
Therefore, no one following the NBA thinks bottom dwellers such as the Charlotte Bobcats or Washington Wizards, for example, really have a shot at winning the title. There is no value on those teams. Fans are more likely to find something worth betting on the Chicago Bulls at 4-1 or the Oklahoma City Thunder at 5-1 (as opposed to the Miami Heat, who are practically 1-1 at sportsbook.ag). Or as my buddy Steve emailed me Super Bowl weekend, seriously dedicated NBA bettors are going to create value the old fashioned way, with parlays.
"I might do that with a Bulls-Lakers final for some serious upside. Would anyone really be blown away by that? I haven't seen that specifically posted, but you could probably assume it would be somewhere in the 13 or 14-1 neighborhood (calculated by halving Chicago's 6-1 and the Lakers' 9-1 odds and then multiplying the two figures = 3x4.5 = 13.5). You going to tell me there's a 1-in-13 chance of that final happening?" That's how NBA futures bettors think. Where is the sweet spot of teams with short odds that are still providing some kind of value? Long shots are scoffed at. The game isn't built for that kind of widespread competition. Which brings me to my point: This Jeremy Lin thing is freaking insane. (I tried so hard to come up with a different way to describe but it really is just that.)
I want to use NBA futures as yet one more way to put it in perspective. This past week I had Todd Fuhrman from Caesars on my podcast. It's the middle of the NBA season. Almost no one bets NBA futures in the middle of the season. But he had moved the odds on the Knicks to win the title down significantly, all the way to 25-1. That wasn't sharp money forcing the move. That was the public, getting caught up in the wave of excitement, the way it did when Tim Tebow started making comebacks. As I've written before, not a single bookmaker worried too much about paying out the Giants as relatively long shots to win the Super Bowl because they had plenty of Broncos money sitting in their pockets.
It will be the same with Lin and the Knicks at the end of the season. Sportsbook.ag reported to me this week that it had the Knicks at 100-1 last weekend and took about $3,000 on that, thanks to Lin. After the linemakers moved it to 75-1 late Sunday afternoon, they took in $5,000 within 24 hours. By Monday afternoon they were at 50-1 and took in $12,000 more. Keep in mind, a sportsbook takes in bets the way President Obama funded his first presidential campaign: $50 or $100 at a time from people sitting idly in front of their computers. This is not where big money goes to get down. Imagine how many people had to wager to add up to those numbers.
It's not just futures that are impacted, either. RJ Bell of Pregame.com sent me a list of some of the Jeremy Lin props available: 40-1 to lead the league in scoring, 50-1 to lead the league in scoring, 24.5 for his assists/points total. The man isn't just saving basketball in New York. He might be saving sportsbooks from the doldrums and low handle of the pre-tourney rush.
Dwight Howard and all his Twitter followers could never do that.
Chad Millman
ESPN INSIDER
This was going to be a column about Dwight Howard. He is an excellent player. A potential Hall of Fame talent. He is very popular, has lots of Twitter followers, has been on the cover of our magazine several times and many, many fans in Orlando worry that he will soon be a former citizen of their fine city. Like Timberlake and Gosling or XTina or the dudes from that show about the making of the boy band with the guy who eventually had a show about coming back after the boy band flamed out, Howard is destined to see that his star cannot shine bright enough inside the Magic Kingdom.
I was supposed to speculate about where he will go and examine how that is affecting the NBA's futures market. To be honest, right now, Howard is as relevant to bookmakers and NBA futures as I am, which is to say not at all.
The talk of where Peyton Manning may end up is, after a couple weeks of stagnancy, impacting bookmakers more than any trade talk about Howard. Miami Dolphins prices have dropped from 50-1 to 30-1. The Cardinals have dropped from 25-1 to 5-1. Even the Seattle Seahawks, a long shot, have gone from unlisted to 10-1. Anyone who Manning might have thought about while under the knife for one of his four-and-counting surgeries is getting action.
But no one is moving the futures of the Bulls or the Lakers or even the Nets just because there are rumors circulating that Howard might end up there. And if he does eventually get traded, it's only New Jersey, which is in triple digits to win the title, that will be dramatically impacted. How much shorter can the Bulls go?
<offer></offer>
In general, NBA futures are trickier than NFL futures. In pro football, every team gets a little action because every fan believes the worst team last year can be the best team next year. The Giants were 20-1 when the season started and got a nice amount of looks. At one point during the season they were 75-1 and still took a little bit of money. But the parity in the NFL has not translated to the NBA, and a new collective bargaining agreement isn't going to change that.
Therefore, no one following the NBA thinks bottom dwellers such as the Charlotte Bobcats or Washington Wizards, for example, really have a shot at winning the title. There is no value on those teams. Fans are more likely to find something worth betting on the Chicago Bulls at 4-1 or the Oklahoma City Thunder at 5-1 (as opposed to the Miami Heat, who are practically 1-1 at sportsbook.ag). Or as my buddy Steve emailed me Super Bowl weekend, seriously dedicated NBA bettors are going to create value the old fashioned way, with parlays.
"I might do that with a Bulls-Lakers final for some serious upside. Would anyone really be blown away by that? I haven't seen that specifically posted, but you could probably assume it would be somewhere in the 13 or 14-1 neighborhood (calculated by halving Chicago's 6-1 and the Lakers' 9-1 odds and then multiplying the two figures = 3x4.5 = 13.5). You going to tell me there's a 1-in-13 chance of that final happening?" That's how NBA futures bettors think. Where is the sweet spot of teams with short odds that are still providing some kind of value? Long shots are scoffed at. The game isn't built for that kind of widespread competition. Which brings me to my point: This Jeremy Lin thing is freaking insane. (I tried so hard to come up with a different way to describe but it really is just that.)
I want to use NBA futures as yet one more way to put it in perspective. This past week I had Todd Fuhrman from Caesars on my podcast. It's the middle of the NBA season. Almost no one bets NBA futures in the middle of the season. But he had moved the odds on the Knicks to win the title down significantly, all the way to 25-1. That wasn't sharp money forcing the move. That was the public, getting caught up in the wave of excitement, the way it did when Tim Tebow started making comebacks. As I've written before, not a single bookmaker worried too much about paying out the Giants as relatively long shots to win the Super Bowl because they had plenty of Broncos money sitting in their pockets.
It will be the same with Lin and the Knicks at the end of the season. Sportsbook.ag reported to me this week that it had the Knicks at 100-1 last weekend and took about $3,000 on that, thanks to Lin. After the linemakers moved it to 75-1 late Sunday afternoon, they took in $5,000 within 24 hours. By Monday afternoon they were at 50-1 and took in $12,000 more. Keep in mind, a sportsbook takes in bets the way President Obama funded his first presidential campaign: $50 or $100 at a time from people sitting idly in front of their computers. This is not where big money goes to get down. Imagine how many people had to wager to add up to those numbers.
It's not just futures that are impacted, either. RJ Bell of Pregame.com sent me a list of some of the Jeremy Lin props available: 40-1 to lead the league in scoring, 50-1 to lead the league in scoring, 24.5 for his assists/points total. The man isn't just saving basketball in New York. He might be saving sportsbooks from the doldrums and low handle of the pre-tourney rush.
Dwight Howard and all his Twitter followers could never do that.
