Hi Mavin,
Been watching this thread from the beginning and have been really enjoying and appreciating your time and efforts in outlining everything you do and also the rest of the posters here, Melos et al who have been adding their well thought out observations.
So to note I live in Oz and have been thinking about taking some time off to look after the kids before the last one heads off for school and instead of working a couple of days here and there I thought I would road test myself to see if I could have any success capping the NBA. A couple of years ago I was in a tipping contest with the NBA and was hitting 60% ATS for between 150-200 bets (I didn't realize at the time 60% was gold) but was only betting real money on about a tenth of those games and the ones I was putting money on was only hitting 50% at best and ended up getting frustrated with the whole thing and gave it away. Afterall NBA is a grind, reading reviews of 13 game card and then previews for a 12 game card becomes a little tiring after awhile specially when you have limited time to devote to it and it is every day, the flip side of that is with the amount of games and scheduling it gives some nice spots to bet in.
Just for the record, I'm not delusional, I know this is a hard, hard road to walk and you just don't wake up one day to be a Pro-Capper and it's not a license to print money but a lot of studying and hard work is involved. I set myself a three step program, make my picks everyday for two months and track how I go, if this is successful, go in with small money for say $10 bets until the end of the season, if this also successful then step in with some real dollars for next season.
Started well, thought how easy is this was pushing above 65% for first week, although knew it couldn't continue but have really been spinning my wheels hard for the last three or so weeks, only had a couple of bad losing days but lots of little losing days and 50/50 splits so it's becoming clear I need to move towards more selective betting. I believe I've got a feel for my really good bets, for instance I love good solid home squads who don't have a great overall record and are playing against teams with a good overall record but who don't necessarily have a great overall record. Eg - yesterday Boston at home to Indiana, Detroit home to Atlanta (Although I flipped and went Atlanta late due to a line movement but liked Detroit originally..oops) however also liked Phoenix at home to Utah and Bucks home to Rockets but in general I feel that is a really good spot especially after the good solid home squad has had a poor road trip. But theres note enough plays in these spots to keep me going so have to add a few more weapons to my arsenal.
So with great interest I have been reading all your posts to learn and also really appreciative of others jumping in with their stuff as well. I really enjoyed the detailed analysis of spreads and line movements and before reading this I was aware of reverse line movements and the sharp/public money but had never been aware that their were false line movements started by the books to sucker you in and now having read it, it makes perfect sense why they would do this.
Anyways have been paying attention to totals (have never bothered before) , line movements and consensus on covers. Both Houstons and Denver last 2 games have seen either an over or under heavily favored (or a fifty split) and for a big reverse line move (4 points) with the four games going in favor of the line move. Seems too good to be true....
I appreciate any more info you have too give on this subject with a couple of random questions floating through my head such as:
In general do the sharps mostly all recognize the same games to hit (I'm thinking more or less yes) and in general I'm assuming bet against the public money and therefore would they step in early knowing that other sharps will step in early and drive the line out or will they wait to see what happens with the public money and try and get a couple of points going their way.
Some times you'll see lines trending downwards, maybe not a lot but a little and then a little half point jump the other way. In general where does the late money come from, sharps or public or a whole lot of mixture of both.
At what point do we think the value would be gone, a 4 point line move is steep, I'm thinking long term if you wait for a line to move 4 points it is going to cut out a lot of the advantage of following the sharp money.
Apologies if these are infantile questions, just trying to get a handle on what I'm seeing.
Apologies also for long, long post, hopefully with it being out of NBA business hours it won't clog up the thread.