With the “second half” of the NBA season starting up following the All-Star Break, most teams are gearing up for one of two scenarios: Competing for a playoff spot, or not so slyly losing as many games as possible to improve their position in the NBA Draft Lottery. In the sports world, this has become known as tanking. The situation makes things interesting in regards to handicapping, and today we are going to look into an NBA betting system to help us profit from it.

For those that don't know, the NBA Draft is designed differently than the other three major U.S. sport leagues (NFL, MLB, NHL). Teams that don't make the playoffs are placed in a lottery for a chance to have one of the top three picks in the draft. After that, teams are ordered by winning percentage lowest to highest for picks 4-14.

The probability of winning those top three spots is greatest for the team with the least wins, and decreases as you move up the standings. Therefore, NBA teams have a huge incentive to lose as many games as possible if they are clearly out of the playoff picture. Although, one of the "best" teams to not make the playoffs still has a chance of winning the #1 overall pick (see 2008 Chicago Bulls drafting Derrick Rose).

Out of the four major sport leagues in the U.S., the NBA by far has the worst tanking problem; mainly because of this draft system. That is why the NBA Board of Governors passed a reform on the NBA Draft this past offseason. The changes give NBA teams with the three worst records an equal chance at securing the top pick. As it stands now, the league's worst team has a 25 percent chance of getting the No. 1 pick, while the next-worst team's chance drops to 19.9 percent. Starting in 2019, the team with the worst record will no longer have a significant advantage to earn the top pick.

Since this doesn’t affect the 2018 draft, this season is especially interesting as team front offices have added “motivation” to lose for one last hurrah in the current system. Personally, I don’t believe the changes will curb tanking, but it may lessen it as teams now only have to be one of the third-worst teams for the best chance at the top pick. Here is how the new lottery odds compare to the current system:

Now that we have that history lesson covered, how does this relate to betting? Common sense might tell you to simply fade (i.e bet against) tanking teams in the second half of the season, but it’s not that simple. Sports bettors and bookmakers alike are aware of NBA teams sucking on purpose, so it is already priced into the market. Let’s dig into the numbers.

Because teams with a winning percentage around 50% are likely competing for a playoff spot, we’ll define a tanking team as having a 35% winning percentage or lower (this gives us the bottom three teams of each conference on average). Since the 2013-14 NBA season, when Sam Hinkie and the Sixers began the modern age of tanking, teams with a winning percentage below 35% have gone 264-280-16 (48.5%) against the spread after the All-Star Break. In other words, the betting market has priced these teams almost perfectly. However, let’s add more criteria to find a profitable angle.

These teams may be bad, but they are still comprised of competitive athletes that hate losing. Since they still win up to 35% of their games, they’re bound to win a game every now and then. When this happens to the dismay of the front office, management may ask/tell their coaches to rest certain starters and/or give more playing time to the inexperienced younger players to ensure a loss the next time out.

When looking at tanking teams that have won their previous game after the break, their ATS record drops to 54-74-4 (42.2%). That gives us a very profitable 57.8% win rate when fading tanking teams against the spread after a win. We could call it a day and watch for these situations moving forward, and I will, but let’s add one more reasonable situation to improve this system even further.

As I was doing this research, I found that home underdogs after the All-Star Break are 294-334-14 (46.8%) against the spread since the 2013-14 season. This trend also holds up over time, as home dogs have covered just 46.3% of games since 2007 after the All-Star Break. That’s a marginally profitable fade on its own, so let’s add it to our system.

By betting against tanking teams with a sub-35% win percentage, that won their last game, and are playing at home after the All-Star Break, the system is 41-27-2 against the spread since the 2013-14 season for a win rate of 60.3 percent! That gives you a profit of 11.3 units with a 16.1% ROI – not too shabby.

For those worried about the small sample size (because it is), the system holds up over the past 10 seasons; just not quite as well. Since the 2007-08 season, fading this situation has gone 119-89-8 ATS (57.2%). That’s still quite profitable winning 21.1 units with an 8.8% ROI, but I narrowed the time frame to match the current age of NBA tanking. The improving trend makes sense though as tanking has become much more common since 2013. Therefore, it appears to be a great system to watch moving forward.

To recap, let’s review the criterion for this betting system:

• Tanking teams are defined as teams with a winning percentage under 35%
• The game is after the All-Star Break
• The tanking team won their last game
• The tanking team is at home

When all of these are met, bet the point spread on the tanking team’s opponent. As I mentioned earlier, I recommend betting just the first three criterion as well (57.8% win rate) since all four situations will occur less often. When all four line-up though, that should be a great bet as it has won 60.3% of the time since 2013.

As of 2018 All-Star Break, here are the teams with their win percentage that meet the tanking criteria:

• Phoenix Suns (30.5%)
• Atlanta Hawks (30.5%)
• Dallas Mavericks (31.0%)
• Orlando Magic (31.6%)
• Sacramento Kings (31.6%)
• Memphis Grizzlies (32.1%)
• Brooklyn Nets (32.2%)*
• Chicago Bulls (35.1%)**

* The Nets have no incentive to tank as they traded their 2018 first round pick initially to the Celtics in the Paul Pierce and Kevin Garnett trade. The pick has since been traded to the Cavaliers as part of the Kyrie Irving trade, so they actually have more incentive to win as much as possible to lower Cleveland’s draft position. Brooklyn has also been the third best team ATS covering 59.3% of their games this season, so I do not suggest fading them in this system.

** The Bulls are one loss from meeting the below 35% threshold and are absolutely in tank mode, so I included them above.

The NBA starts back up today, so keep an eye on these situations the rest of the season! As I’ve said before, I’m not much of a trends bettor, but with the logical reasoning I’ve described above and ten seasons worth of results to back it up, I’m confident following this system. I’ll try to alert everyone when these spots arise as well, so be sure to follow me on Twitter!

If you have any questions about this system or sports betting in general, feel free to send me a message. You can also receive betting tips just like this by subscribing to my blog if you haven’t done so already.

Lastly, if you want to improve your sports betting profits and start making money on the NBA, you can join my Fast Break MVP service to receive all my betting picks! My NBA models have been consistent winners since 2012 and this season is no different. Click here for more information and to sign-up for a package today.

Thanks for stopping by and good luck!

Stephen

P.S. If you are interested in how I found all those ATS trends, check out KillerSports.com and learn about their SDQL Query tool. It takes some time to learn the language, but once you do, it is incredibly powerful and useful (as seen above). You can find results of literally billions of situations for all the major sports including college football and basketball. I highly recommend it, especially if you are into betting trends. Feel free to message me with questions, although I am still learning the language as well.