Comments on: Do Young Teams Cover the Spread Less Often in Their Playoff Debut? http://www.basketball-reference.com/blog/?p=5204 NBA & ABA Basketball Statistics & History Mon, 21 Nov 2011 20:56:04 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.6 By: Neil Paine http://www.basketball-reference.com/blog/?p=5204&cpage=1#comment-15931 Thu, 08 Apr 2010 15:28:33 +0000 http://www.basketball-reference.com/blog/?p=5204#comment-15931 Gary,

I believe it's actually a pretty good predictor of the spread for a metric that is automated and doesn't account for injuries, etc. When sharps talk about having "power ratings", SRS is essentially what they're using -- some kind of points-based rating that is then used to determine what kind of margin you should give to the underdog. Obviously the spread is determined by having equal action on both sides, but I think a large # of bettors are going to be using some kind of formula (or thought process) like this at least as a baseline to determine relative team strengths, as are the books when they set the opening lines.

]]> By: Neil Paine http://www.basketball-reference.com/blog/?p=5204&cpage=1#comment-15921 Thu, 08 Apr 2010 13:24:11 +0000 http://www.basketball-reference.com/blog/?p=5204#comment-15921 That's a good question -- why didn't I try to predict the magnitude of the error in predicted point spread instead of simply using the binary 1 if covered, 0 if not covered? So I set up another regression where I used Age, Previous Playoff G, and Previous Playoff MP as the independent variables and "Diff" (defined as Actual Margin - Predicted Spread) as the dependent variable. This would detect if maybe the younger teams were "not covering" by a wider margin than the older teams, all else being held equal... And again, none of the variables were significant in predicting the magnitude of the error. This one looks really busted.

]]> By: Jared Ras http://www.basketball-reference.com/blog/?p=5204&cpage=1#comment-15903 Wed, 07 Apr 2010 22:54:57 +0000 http://www.basketball-reference.com/blog/?p=5204#comment-15903 Why did you predict the likelihood rather than graphing the actual residuals? Or are they the same?

]]> By: Gary C http://www.basketball-reference.com/blog/?p=5204&cpage=1#comment-15900 Wed, 07 Apr 2010 21:40:18 +0000 http://www.basketball-reference.com/blog/?p=5204#comment-15900 That's likely a pretty poor estimator of point spreads. Why didn't you use real ones? Covers.com or goldsheet.com have them going back well into the 90's.

]]> By: Neil Paine http://www.basketball-reference.com/blog/?p=5204&cpage=1#comment-15886 Wed, 07 Apr 2010 16:53:38 +0000 http://www.basketball-reference.com/blog/?p=5204#comment-15886 Unfortunately, though, unlike Grant Imahara I don't get to blow anything up, and I don't get to work closely with Kari Byron.

]]> By: Jason J http://www.basketball-reference.com/blog/?p=5204&cpage=1#comment-15883 Wed, 07 Apr 2010 15:26:04 +0000 http://www.basketball-reference.com/blog/?p=5204#comment-15883 Neil Payne - Mythbuster!

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