Via Henry Aaron, odds on winning the Eastern Conference in the NBA. Naturally enough, the Wizards are longshots. Much less naturally, the bettors are giving the Magic, Knicks, and Celtics better odds and have the Wizards even with the 76ers. Don't these guys know anything? The Boston, New York, and Philadelphia may all be higher-profile teams, but they're terrible to the Wiz' mediocre.
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Market Failures
16 Oct 2006 03:14 pm
Comments (19)
Ah, you're both wrong. Henry Aaron is the home run king.
Anyhow, this is the time where I wish there were a legal way to short-sell the sports book. I'd gladly get on the book side of some of those championship odds, but, of course, I can not legally make a book. So how do I profit?
Well.
I think the Magic clearly do have a better shot than the Wizards. Dwight Howard is on the brink of becoming a dominating force, Milicic is beginning to show why he got drafted before Anthony, Wade, Bosh and Hinrich, Jameer Nelson's great, Grant Hill might be played etc. This is a good young man that very well might break out this year.
The Knicks have a crapload of talent and they've looked not too bad in the preseason. The line on number of wins should be higher for the Wiz, but I think the Knicks have a much higher ceiling, thus the better chances for a championship. If Isiah gets through and the new offense works, they could be a very very good team. That isn't too likely, but I also don't see any reason to ever believe the Wizards could conceivably be better than Miami, Chicago or Cleveland. They just don't have the guns beyond Gilbert. And Gilbert played about as well as a guy could last year against Cleveland and they came up short.
As for Boston, they're a pretty blah team. Rivers is kind of a crummy coach, but they still might be better than the Wizards if Al Jefferson pulls himself together.
Oy, welcome to typo city.
played = playing
good young man = good young team
championship = Eastern Conference Championship
There are two Henry Aarons, but neither the Brookings guy nor Hammerin' Hank wrote this article.
The Celts, Knicks, and 76ers should be listed behind the Wizards, but I don't understand why the Bucks are. They have more total talent then the Wizards, and made the playoffs last year. I think the Wizards are going to be fighting for that last slot. Which means that Jordan could be terminated at season's end.
It's important to remember that the odds are not set based on the best guess of experts on what will happen, but rather based on what will get people to bet in such a way that bookies make money. In certain cases, the two may be very similar, but when you're dealing with teams that have large and ardent fan bases, things get a bit skewed.
Chad beats me to the point: odds are not a judgement about outcomes, they are a judgement about how to get people to bet.
to take the knicks, for instance, there were an astonishing number of people last year who thought the knicks were playoff calibre, an error that never crossed my mind.
apparently, there still are.
Yeah, when I saw "Henry Aaron" and "market failures" in my rss reader, I was all geared up for some good health wonkery. But then, I'm always geared up for some good health wonkery.
From a sports betting perspective, it's almost impossible to make a profit on this kind of futures bet, particularly in the NBA where it's so rare to have a conference champion come from out of nowhere. By far the most underrated aspect, though, is the fact that these bets tie up your money for so long. If you have any ability as a winning sports bettor, you could make far, far more by betting individual games from now until the end of the season than you could by making even the most favorable futures bet.
At my favorite sports betting forum, someone bought the Tigers to win the World Series before this season started at 800-1. Mind you, the odds were supposed to be 80-1, but the book screwed up the line. He repeatedly emailed them to confirm that they would honor his bet, and they responded "Yep, no problem." Now he has $500 looking to make $400,000. I still don't think he'll get paid, but they ratified it so many times...
The odds you cite are not "market" odds. They are set by a bookmaker.
If you're interested in what odds the market is setting on various NBA future events, head on over to TradeSports like a normal person.
To the extent it's more than just homer betting, people may be imagining that the Wiz have pretty much peaked where they are and won't get any better, while the 76ers, Knicks and my beloved Celts have more of that magical thing called "potential".
Mike
"the bettors are giving the Magic, Knicks, and Celtics better odds and have the Wizards even with the 76ers."
The Wizards are favored over all of those teams at Tradesports.
Anyone who sees "Henry Aaron" and thinks Brookings Institution rather than All-Time Home Run Leader really is a wonk.
Orlanda will be pretty solid.
". . . while the 76ers, Knicks and my beloved Celts have more of that magical thing called "potential"."
I find it hard to believe that the Knicks or 76ers have more potential than the Wiz. None of them are bubbling over with it but the Knicks have a lot of guys who, even if they pan out (a dubious assumption but I'll not get in to specifics), will be good players in the league but nobody with even near greatness potential. I'm not even sure who you would be talking about on the Sixers, maybe Dalmebert or Igoudala. But AIii is wildly overrated as having star potential and Dalembert will be a good center but isn't going to carry any team anywhere.
The Wiz, on the other hand, have Andre Blatche. That kid is mega talented and I expect him to be playing some important minutes by the end of this season. I think it is his potential that made Jeffries expendable. Plus, I was a doubter for the first few years but Caron Butler is as talented a young player as any of the Knick or Celtic youngsters.
I'll give you that the Celtics might have an argument of having more potential than the Wiz though. Green, Telfair, Perkins and West are all very high potential guys, especially Green. Don't make the mistake of thinking, as so many Celtic fans did, that Al Jefferson is anything more than a nice average PF for the future. His ceiling is that he might, several years from now and under just the right circumstances during a career year, make the all-star team. It's as high as it goes with him.
So, who does Kareem Abdul-Jabbar think will win the World Series?
I don't think it is so much that the Philly and Boston fans are over-enthusiastic as it is that Wizards fans are unwilling to recognize how good their team is. But the Knick fans are completely delusional. They think an incompetent coach will do better with their load of crap than Larry Brown did.
What's the deal with the odds for Chicago? How good is Ben Wallace supposed to be? A great afro and lots of rebounds will only get you so far.
Comments closed October 30, 2006.
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Heads in the Sand
you mean Henry Abbott? Henry Aaron is a scholar at Brookings.
Posted by drew | October 16, 2006 3:25 PM