What you said about Vegas wanting even money is more or less correct. However, gambling is a massive industry and with anaytics even more accessible, the sportsbooks spend a lot of money to make sure they don't put out massively flawed lines because they would be exposing themselves to having drastically move the line, and that is where they could get hammered. They don't worry about $20 bets made by the public nearly as much as $10,000 bets made by the smart money... the smart money attempts to remove all emotion when they make their bets, it's all probability. Personally, I would lean much more heavily to the Vegas line than say a Blazers message board poll in attempting to determine the true consensus of what the Blazers were expected to do this year.
This! If I felt the Blazers were grossly underrated every single year I would be putting big bucks on the over season after season. Having kept close tabs on the Blazers season over/under win total for 15+ years, I have not be able to determine a strong bias one direction or the other. Vegas has been way off on a few occasions, but not consistently in the same direction.
Wouldve won the over despite the injuries and poor coaching, so I guess I was right about the talent being underrated. Vegas over/under totals is a reflection of what the general public thinks. I know about the Blazers than the general public. I think that's the case for everyone in here. Why the hell are we trying to make points based off what the general public thinks when were all smarter than that? That's my point.
There was a report that Jody was upset about our defensive ranking in the middle of the season. It never improved.
Yeah, so with futures bets and moneylines in general the experts in Vegas get it as close to right as possible. So if they're giving Denver in 6 the best odds and therefore the worst payout, they really do think that it's going to be Denver in 6 and they have people that have scrutinized our team just as much as you and Denver just as much as you have our team. These odds makers for big sports books are some of the smartest and most well informed people in sports.
Not that your post is serious, but there does have to be a legit discussion about trading CJ. Is CJ a better player than Norman Powell? Yes, individually he is.... at least on one side of the ball. Norman Powell is a MUCH better fit for this team. Trading CJ for extra wing help or a functional PF, would do WONDERS for this team AND get that God awful contract out of here. That contract is going to be hard to sell. But in the end, Norman Powell is the best fit for this team. Trading CJ would be the best move for this franchise and if you can... Powell re-signs.
I'll ask you this: what makes the sportsbook more money? Getting a 50/50 split on action or being half a win off but having 60% call it correctly?
Let's put it this way, he's making a lot of money that I don't know if other teams want to pay him, thus lowering his value.
The bets you're talking about right now are the spread and over/under. They want those to come in at around 50/50. The moneyline and futures are both designed to pay very little for the outcome that the book sees as likely and tantalize bettors with big opportunities to win or low odds on results these experts think are highly unlikely. They love it when a ton of people (>60%) take a long shot. They do not want people to take bets that they're paying back less than the bet. They are still hedging so they do want some balance but futures and moneylines are very different games than what you're describing.
He averaged 23 & 5 this year on solid efficiency. Gonna be hard to find a guy doing that that isn't on a max contract or a rookie contract.
Gotcha, it makes sense now. Isnt it strange that to make a point about basketball, people bring up sports betting instead of actual basketball?
It is strange. Referring to on court play would seem to be a better place to go or even the insane amount of statistics that are out there. I do think however when judging something as subjective as sports a lot of people will look a lot of different places to validate their take. So if the only place that they can find that supports their opinion is a betting line... I guess in that case it would make sense that they would feel they had to use that. I would think that it would be the last place a person would look to validate their opinion and hopefully they would trust their own knowledge first.
Fair. I said cj is the better player, but Powell is the better fit. There's gotta be a change and I think CJ is the one that needs to be traded.
Alright. I can go with that. Though i doubt i am much smarter than the average fan that follows the team closely?
By following the team at least a little bit you're already ahead of the average member of the general public.
I don't disagree with the rest of your post (even though I don't think there's good options to fit what you want to trade C.J. for). It just boggles my mind when people say he's a terrible contract.
Boggle is a fun game. And yeah, I don't know what we can get thats fair value. It sucks. Cause it's the clear option with Powell here to show us CJ ain't the answer.
