As always, keep an eye on injuries, back to backs, COVID Issues, and players returning from injury. All stats pulled are TEAM stats from the Last 8 games (L8) and don’t account for individual players. So be aware of new absences and players returning from an absence that could skew the L8 Team stats.
I will regularly post updates throughout the day and annotate with a “*”.
Added Pace of play and a couple other stats to the models. All projections have this data incorporated, but the records will reflect the old model projections. If the new stats skew the models and negatively effect the performance over the course of the next week, I will revert back to the old model (today’s original projection).
*Accidently ran and posted the old model. Updated with new projections 11:00am CST.
Records
Here is how the models have been performing.
ATS Record
O/U Record
Top Performing Models
Based on Average Win % between ATS and O/U.
- Random Forest – 56%
- Neural Net – 55%
- kNN – 53%
- Ada Boost – 52%
- Basic Model – 52%
- Linear Regression – 49%
- SVM – 47%
- SGD – 46%
Summary of Projections
ATS Projections
O/U Projections
Player and Team News
Teams on a back to back: Suns (Home).
Celtics/Wizards: Celtics are still without Marcus Smart, but his impact will be mostly reflected in the stats.
T-Wolves/Raptors: DeAngelo Russell is out for the Wolves for the 4th game in the last 8. His absence will be partially reflected in the stats. KAT is playing his 3rd game back from COVID protocol, his impact on the court will not be reflected in the stats.
Spurs/Hornets: LaMarcus Aldridge is out for the 6th consecutive game. His absence will be mostly reflected in the stats.
Blazers/Mavs: Nurkic and McCollum are still out, but their absence is fully reflected in the stats.
Bucks/Thunder: Jrue Holiday will miss his 4th straight game, his absence will be partially reflecetd in the stats. Shae Gilgeous-Alexander will miss his 5th game in the last 8, his absence will be mostly reflected in the stats.
Magic/Suns: Fournier has missed the last 4 games for the Magic and is a game time decision today. The backup point guards are also all game time decisions for the Magic. The Magic has struggled offensively without Fournier on the court.
Lakers/Nuggets: Anthony Davis is considered a game time decision although he is expected to play. Barton is out for the Nuggets and Murray is a game time decision. If murray cant go thats a huge blow that wont be reflected in the stats.
Cavs/Clippers: Paul George is out for his 5th straight game. His absence will be partially reflected in the stats.
Grizzlies/Kings: De’Aaron Fox and Marvin Bagley are both game time decisions after missing Fridays game due to injury. If they can’t go their absence wont be reflected in the stats. If Fox cant go the offense will be run through a very inconsistent Buddy Hield.
*Andre Drummond is out for the Cavs.
*Gordon Hayward is out for the Hornets.
*Blake Griffin is out for the Pistons.
Sharp Report
Early Money
ATS – Some Sharp money has come in on the Wolves (+9), Mavs (-3.5), & Suns (-8.5).
O/U – Some Sharp money has come in on the Pelicans/Pistons Under (222.5) & Magic/Suns Under (217.5).
Mid Day
No mid day report today.
Late Afternoon
ATS – Some Sharp money has come in on the Lakers (-3) & Suns (-8.5).
O/U – Some Sharp money has come in on the Spurs/Hornets Under (228.5).
Model Projections
1. Random Forest (R.F.)
[Nerd Talk] Best performance is capped at about 50 trees, anything more than that and the processing time/power required for a very minor improvement increases exponentially.
Record
Record: 51% ATS, 62% O/U.
ATS
O/U
Model Projections
How to read the projections: The model type is at the very top. Matchups are denoted by the alternating white/green pairings, away teams are on top, home teams on bottom. The model analyzes the matchup and projects the home and away teams score (Proj Score). The difference between the home teams score and the away teams score give us what the model says the line should be (Proj Line). The “Line” column is what the Vegas line is at the time I run the model. The “Line Diff” is the difference in the projected line and the Vegas line. A positive line diff means the projected line is in the away teams favor compared to the Vegas line, negative means the projected line is in the home teams favor. The “Cover Prob” uses a normal distribution and the teams variance to project each teams probability to cover the listed Vegas line. Same thing for totals, “Proj Total” is the sum of the projected scores, “Line Total” is the listed Vegas total for the game, the difference between the two, and the probability to go over or stay under denoted by “O” and “U”.
Betting Edge
If you don’t understand what you are looking at, I recommend reading my post about betting tips. The percentages show the betting Edge, which is the cover prob (from above) minus the implied probability (-110 odds implied prob is 52.4%). If a team has a 92.4% chance to win and a 52.4% implied probability (or -110 odds), the Edge is 40%. The Edge alone doesn’t mean you should blindly bet it. To quantify, >35% is great value, 20-35% is really good, 10-20% is decent, <10 is ok value, blanks are negative value. ML is moneyline.
2. Neural Network (NN)
[Nerd Talk] The activation function for this 100 layer NN is a linear function. The solver is an SGD.
Record
Record: 50% ATS, 59% O/U.
ATS
O/U
Model Projections
How to read the projections: The model type is at the very top. Matchups are denoted by the alternating white/green pairings, away teams are on top, home teams on bottom. The model analyzes the matchup and projects the home and away teams score (Proj Score). The difference between the home teams score and the away teams score give us what the model says the line should be (Proj Line). The “Line” column is what the Vegas line is at the time I run the model. The “Line Diff” is the difference in the projected line and the Vegas line. A positive line diff means the projected line is in the away teams favor compared to the Vegas line, negative means the projected line is in the home teams favor. The “Cover Prob” uses a normal distribution and the teams variance to project each teams probability to cover the listed Vegas line. Same thing for totals, “Proj Total” is the sum of the projected scores, “Line Total” is the listed Vegas total for the game, the difference between the two, and the probability to go over or stay under denoted by “O” and “U”.
Betting Edge
If you don’t understand what you are looking at, I recommend reading my post about betting tips. The percentages show the betting Edge, which is the cover prob (from above) minus the implied probability (-110 odds implied prob is 52.4%). If a team has a 92.4% chance to win and a 52.4% implied probability (or -110 odds), the Edge is 40%. The Edge alone doesn’t mean you should blindly bet it. To quantify, >35% is great value, 20-35% is really good, 10-20% is decent, <10 is ok value, blanks are negative value. ML is moneyline.
3. k-Nearest Neighbor (kNN)
The lazy learner (That’s what my grad school prof called it). Nearest Neighbor has performed best with 30 Neighbors.
Record
Record: 52% ATS, 54% O/U.
ATS
O/U
Model Projections
How to read the projections: The model type is at the very top. Matchups are denoted by the alternating white/green pairings, away teams are on top, home teams on bottom. The model analyzes the matchup and projects the home and away teams score (Proj Score). The difference between the home teams score and the away teams score give us what the model says the line should be (Proj Line). The “Line” column is what the Vegas line is at the time I run the model. The “Line Diff” is the difference in the projected line and the Vegas line. A positive line diff means the projected line is in the away teams favor compared to the Vegas line, negative means the projected line is in the home teams favor. The “Cover Prob” uses a normal distribution and the teams variance to project each teams probability to cover the listed Vegas line. Same thing for totals, “Proj Total” is the sum of the projected scores, “Line Total” is the listed Vegas total for the game, the difference between the two, and the probability to go over or stay under denoted by “O” and “U”.
Betting Edge
If you don’t understand what you are looking at, I recommend reading my post about betting tips. The percentages show the betting Edge, which is the cover prob (from above) minus the implied probability (-110 odds implied prob is 52.4%). If a team has a 92.4% chance to win and a 52.4% implied probability (or -110 odds), the Edge is 40%. The Edge alone doesn’t mean you should blindly bet it. To quantify, >35% is great value, 20-35% is really good, 10-20% is decent, <10 is ok value, blanks are negative value. ML is moneyline.