Diop-
To be honest, I usually use my own original opinion as the starting point for bets. I never look into all kinds of numbers and trends before I develop a rough opinion of each game. Denver stood out to me tonight because I thought the line was a bit high considering their recent play.
Only after picking a certain game (or games) to focus on do I start looking up basic stats like recent play, ATS (H/A) records, and past meetings. Nothing stood out to me all that much to either encourage or discourage my original feeling on the game. Denver won their last game vs LA so I know that they can at least hang in there with them...and I don't believe in the "revenge" theories all that much.
In the end, I felt the line was inflated becasue the public loves Kobe, overvalues the Lakers at home (only win about 45% ATS), and maybe think back to last year's first rd mathcup and think of what a joke Denver was. I think with Billups, etc all the matchups are much different than then and Denver has a winning attitude now. Also, I did factor in Bynum's return as you mentioned...I think if anything he gets the Lakers out of a synch at least for a little while (especially hurting them if its one of these 15-20 min tune-ups like KG had) and messes up Odom a bit if he is moved back to the bench.
In the end, it's mostly just my original sense that the line -9 was too high for a team playing as well as Denver and I'm trusting that sense moreso this week than usual because I'm on a pretty good run. This makes the process sound more complicated than it probably was. :lol:
Hope you find it helpful in explaining my pick...do you have a play on the game or still just deciding?
hno: but thats how it goes I guess. For my standards its still a pretty damn good week overall. I'll be back at it tomorrow, might have a new thread up for picks soon.
