Vegas impact of Derrick Rose's injury
Chad Millman
ESPN INSIDER
Nothing recovers from a hangover faster than Vegas. It's like the city itself breathes the same revitalizing, super-concentrated, Woody Harrelson-endorsed oxygen pumped through casinos that the rest of us do. There simply isn't time to suffer. There are too many games to be played, too much money to be lost, too many opportunities to take advantage of, too many meals at the Peppermill to be had.
For example, let's consider the reaction to the Derrick Rose injury from two perspectives: the layman's and the professional's. In the layman camp, except for the tone-deaf dude from Nike, Rose's torn ACL is universally recognized as tragic.
At least in the way of sports, not in the way of life. Excepting those who hate Adidas, to everyone else who loves sports, Rose and the Bulls are eminently likable. This team has been the NBA's best regular-season team the past two seasons, and yet it's hard for anyone to truly feel about them the way they do about the Lakers or the Celtics or the Heat. The Bulls take the game seriously and take themselves seriously. And that comes from Rose. He tries so damn hard, even with 90 seconds left in a playoff game one could easily argue he should have been pulled from. He plays like Allen Iverson during that run to the Finals the Sixers had more than a decade ago, when Larry Brown was the coach. Rose so carelessly invites harm when he pushes toward the hoop you always worry: Is this going to be it?
<offer>And on Saturday, it was. After a season of holding our breath, we finally got to exhale, if only because the end finally arrived. As a Bulls fan, it took me a full day to recover. (Saturday night began with a few drinks at a buddy's house while our kids destroyed his basement. It ended with me passed out in my 5-year-old's bed as I tried to focus on a dinosaur book. The little guy understood, tucked me in and then made life extremely difficult on Sunday.) I spent a lot of time between tantrums trying to find some kind of precedent for a team losing its best player and still running the table. Can't think of one. The best I can come up with is Bill Frieder getting fired by Michigan in 1989 right before the NCAA tourney and Steve Fisher leading the Wolverines to the national title anyway.
But in Vegas, there was no sympathy for Rose. There was only action -- from bookmakers, from handicappers, from anyone scrambling to make a buck off of the injury. Saturday afternoon, some people were buying futures based on speculation, hoping to get some teams at longer odds before the Rose news became official and odds dramatically shifted. But others were furiously calculating new ratings for the Bulls in anticipation of the line posting for Game 2. On Sunday afternoon, I emailed Erin Rynning, the NBA handicapper I speak to often, with this question: "Do you think there will be value on the Bulls because of overreaction?"
His response: "Yes, I'll look to move that way. I love overreaction by the media/oddsmakers!!!" (The exclamation points are his. It's also worth pointing out that in my podcast with Rynning last week, he commented that the Bulls were looking gassed and his one criticism of them is that Tom Thibodeau didn't seem to rest anyone when he had the chance. Too true.)
The NBA playoffs are always interesting from a handicapping perspective because of the zigzag theory. I've written about this method of betting the past few years and you can read those columns, so I won't get deep into it again. But essentially it goes like this: After a team wins a game in the playoffs, handicappers have traditionally looked to fade that team the following game. The thinking has always been that the team needing the win will be more desperate and play a little harder. For many years, this was a safe play. But in the past decade or so, bookmakers have caught up to it and now adjust their numbers. If you don't know about zigzag and are new to following lines, it can make for a mind-bending look at point spreads.
For example, at the Las Vegas Hilton, the Bulls closed as 8.5-point favorites in Game 1 of the playoffs against Philly. They won by 12. Despite the double-digit win and relatively easy cover, had Rose not gotten hurt, LVH bookmaker Jeff Sherman told me they would have opened as 7.5-point favorites in Game 2. Jimmy Vaccaro from Lucky's gave me a similar scenario.
Now throw in another factor. Like the reigning MVP getting hurt. What is he worth? Depending on your answer, you might find some value. At sportsbook.com, they closed Game 1 at 9.5 and opened Game 2 at 5.5. The bookmakers there told me they saw Rose as being worth four points. Meanwhile, both Vaccaro and Sherman saw Rose being worth about 1.5 points. In the middle was Rynning, who saw Rose as being worth three points.
And throw in this: The Bulls still finished the season tied for the best record in the NBA, despite the fact Rose missed around half of the team's 66 games. Sure, they were better with him, but they weren't the Bobcats without him. As Thibodeau said on Sunday: "It's not a death sentence for us."
"You're really reacting to how the team reacts at this point," says Rynning. "They're very well coached with what is a bunch of team guys, so they should be fine to an extent … like to an extent that is good enough to beat Philly."
That should cure any hangover.
</offer>
Chad Millman
ESPN INSIDER
Nothing recovers from a hangover faster than Vegas. It's like the city itself breathes the same revitalizing, super-concentrated, Woody Harrelson-endorsed oxygen pumped through casinos that the rest of us do. There simply isn't time to suffer. There are too many games to be played, too much money to be lost, too many opportunities to take advantage of, too many meals at the Peppermill to be had.
For example, let's consider the reaction to the Derrick Rose injury from two perspectives: the layman's and the professional's. In the layman camp, except for the tone-deaf dude from Nike, Rose's torn ACL is universally recognized as tragic.
At least in the way of sports, not in the way of life. Excepting those who hate Adidas, to everyone else who loves sports, Rose and the Bulls are eminently likable. This team has been the NBA's best regular-season team the past two seasons, and yet it's hard for anyone to truly feel about them the way they do about the Lakers or the Celtics or the Heat. The Bulls take the game seriously and take themselves seriously. And that comes from Rose. He tries so damn hard, even with 90 seconds left in a playoff game one could easily argue he should have been pulled from. He plays like Allen Iverson during that run to the Finals the Sixers had more than a decade ago, when Larry Brown was the coach. Rose so carelessly invites harm when he pushes toward the hoop you always worry: Is this going to be it?
<offer>And on Saturday, it was. After a season of holding our breath, we finally got to exhale, if only because the end finally arrived. As a Bulls fan, it took me a full day to recover. (Saturday night began with a few drinks at a buddy's house while our kids destroyed his basement. It ended with me passed out in my 5-year-old's bed as I tried to focus on a dinosaur book. The little guy understood, tucked me in and then made life extremely difficult on Sunday.) I spent a lot of time between tantrums trying to find some kind of precedent for a team losing its best player and still running the table. Can't think of one. The best I can come up with is Bill Frieder getting fired by Michigan in 1989 right before the NCAA tourney and Steve Fisher leading the Wolverines to the national title anyway.
But in Vegas, there was no sympathy for Rose. There was only action -- from bookmakers, from handicappers, from anyone scrambling to make a buck off of the injury. Saturday afternoon, some people were buying futures based on speculation, hoping to get some teams at longer odds before the Rose news became official and odds dramatically shifted. But others were furiously calculating new ratings for the Bulls in anticipation of the line posting for Game 2. On Sunday afternoon, I emailed Erin Rynning, the NBA handicapper I speak to often, with this question: "Do you think there will be value on the Bulls because of overreaction?"
His response: "Yes, I'll look to move that way. I love overreaction by the media/oddsmakers!!!" (The exclamation points are his. It's also worth pointing out that in my podcast with Rynning last week, he commented that the Bulls were looking gassed and his one criticism of them is that Tom Thibodeau didn't seem to rest anyone when he had the chance. Too true.)
The NBA playoffs are always interesting from a handicapping perspective because of the zigzag theory. I've written about this method of betting the past few years and you can read those columns, so I won't get deep into it again. But essentially it goes like this: After a team wins a game in the playoffs, handicappers have traditionally looked to fade that team the following game. The thinking has always been that the team needing the win will be more desperate and play a little harder. For many years, this was a safe play. But in the past decade or so, bookmakers have caught up to it and now adjust their numbers. If you don't know about zigzag and are new to following lines, it can make for a mind-bending look at point spreads.
For example, at the Las Vegas Hilton, the Bulls closed as 8.5-point favorites in Game 1 of the playoffs against Philly. They won by 12. Despite the double-digit win and relatively easy cover, had Rose not gotten hurt, LVH bookmaker Jeff Sherman told me they would have opened as 7.5-point favorites in Game 2. Jimmy Vaccaro from Lucky's gave me a similar scenario.
Now throw in another factor. Like the reigning MVP getting hurt. What is he worth? Depending on your answer, you might find some value. At sportsbook.com, they closed Game 1 at 9.5 and opened Game 2 at 5.5. The bookmakers there told me they saw Rose as being worth four points. Meanwhile, both Vaccaro and Sherman saw Rose being worth about 1.5 points. In the middle was Rynning, who saw Rose as being worth three points.
And throw in this: The Bulls still finished the season tied for the best record in the NBA, despite the fact Rose missed around half of the team's 66 games. Sure, they were better with him, but they weren't the Bobcats without him. As Thibodeau said on Sunday: "It's not a death sentence for us."
"You're really reacting to how the team reacts at this point," says Rynning. "They're very well coached with what is a bunch of team guys, so they should be fine to an extent … like to an extent that is good enough to beat Philly."
That should cure any hangover.
</offer>
