* The only purpose of a point spread is to ensure that a roughly equal amount of money is best on both teams.
Well, usually that’s what a book wants, and sometimes not, and how often a particular book wants that varies from book to book.
The advantage the bettor has over the book is that the bettor doesn’t have to play every game, while the book attracts a large clientele by offering odds on a lot of games in a lot of sports. When Jacksonville State plays Tennessee Tech in college hoops, most or all of the books are simply going to want to split the action. It’s a D-1 game, and they have to put up a number, so they do. They might have 100 college games plus 7 or 8 NBA games and 8 or 9 NHL games on the same Saturday (plus maybe pro tennis and European soccer and who knows what else). They’re unlikely to take a side, as they’re well aware that some people in Jacksonville, Alabama, may have a much better handle on what the line ought to be. However, in other cases, books will take a side.
First, the guys running the show generally like to gamble. I watched the Panthers-Pats Super Bowl with a party that included a former sportsbook director. He had 55 dimes on the side and 33 on the total. At one of the forums I frequent, we have posters who are inhouse at books in Costa Rica and other points south. They have opinions, and they shade lines to get uneven action. Not that long ago, when the Stardust used to put out the first numbers each Sunday during the football season, Roxy was always presumed to be inviting action on the favorite when he would make a team a 2,5-, 6.5-, or 9.5-point favorite or on the dog at +3.5, +7.5, etc.
Second, taking a side maximizes profits where the book is better at determining the true line than the public is. The Kelly Criterion remains applicable when you’re a sportsbook betting at +110 instead of -110, and you’re leaving money on the table if you don’t set the number somewhere between the true line and the split-the-action line. If your competitors do this (successfully) and you don’t, you may “conservative” yourself out of business.
* Kobe Bryant by himself never showed any ability to make his team better during his career. He won three titles with Phil Jackson and Shaq and Shaq was the MVP of all three championships. After having the streak stopped by San Antonio, the Lakers signed Peyton and Malone to push for a fourth one which despite being huge favorites they lost to the Pistons 4-1, largely because Bryant wanted to be “the man” more then in winning the title.
He pouted afterwards and got Shaq traded on unfavorable terms to Miami and de facto got Phil Jackson fired despite his then nine titles. The next three full seasons without a big man ( and with Jackson without a big the last two after being rehired after season one ) Bryant’s team missed the playoffs the first year and then had back to back first round exits. After this he pouted and demanded a trade from the Lakers because they couldn’t win with the team he demanded from Buss.
They were likewise going nowhere the following season when they got former Laker star and GM Jerry West who was know the Grizzlies GM to trade them their best players for gum and comic books and, lo and behold the Lakers became contenders again, winning the Western Conference, but losing to Boston 4-2 largely due again to Bryant’s inability to share the limelight with his teammates including the one that got him a new lease on life.
Now with a legitimate big man with passing skill the Lakers won two more titles the next two seasons after Bryant got Gasol for a full season for the first time. Eventually he got tired the little attention that Gasol got and eventually blew up that team as well, Jackson included, and have done absolutely nothing since. These last two seasons where the Lakers are one of the worst teams in the NBA are fitting end to career marked selfishness and an inability to play well with others.
* It’ll be interesting to see, btw, when the steroids revelations finally come out about the NBA. Clearly many of the players have been on them (check out the physiques in the 1990s!), and I think Lebron was one of them—his physique has been far too muscular compared to forwards of days gone by.
I usually judge physiques of baseball and basketball players by pre-1990s standards, since the late 1980s seems to be when athletes started to, en mass, drop the old superstitions about “weight lifting making you too tight to move”, which was probably due to the introduction of steroids, which offered bulk/strength without the loss of flexibility/agility ascribed to weight lifting. (Jose Conseco admitted being a sort of Typhoid Mary of Steroids in the late 1980s in baseball).
Anyway, Lebron took off his shirt once during an NBA game at the behest of his agent to show off for the crowd, and he was far too bulky and sculpted compared to pre-1990s power forwards/small forwards. Then you remember he was carrying that extra bulk down a hardwood floor 80-100 times a year, and it was clear the only way he could do so and remain that fast and agile was some sort of juice. Compare his body to, say, Tim Duncan, and he looked like Arnold.
Anyway, when the NBA thing hits, it’ll be great. Another circus.
* Both Newton and Russell Wilson were outstanding over the second half of the season, while this year the leading white pocket quarterbacks seemed to get dinged up and their effectiveness diminished as the season dragged on and weather got worse.
Here’s an interesting hypothesis that could easily be tested: white pocket passing quarterbacks tend to be better in the first half of the season before it gets cold and wet, while black running quarterbacks are better over the second half of the season.
I haven’t noticed this before 2015, so it’s probably not true in general, but it seemed to be true in 2015.
Or maybe it’s becoming more true as more rules get enforced to prevent quarterbacks from getting injured?
* They should do more to provide placekickers with opportunities to be heroes as well as goats.
Here’s a vague idea: put a 10 foot tall net between the crossbars between 20 and 30 feet off the ground. Kick it into the net you get two points, below the net one point, over the net zero points. That would encourage low kicks, which would make blocking kicks more feasible.
Blocked kicks are great.
My son’s JV team won their league on last play of the season blocked field goal run back 95 yards for a touchdown: it was the single most exciting play I’ve seen in 50 years of watching football.
