*Planning to do this annually, so i hope i don't forget. But basically, posting the Against the Spread (ATS) results for the entire year (reg season + playoffs) for all teams and hopefully that gives us an idea that these teams know their spread and Vegas lines (or so we think).
And even if they don't know, we know Vegas is the master of this balancing act of identifying the spread correctly- it's almost 50% across the board so that takes skill too, right?
Takeaways
+ We can see how consistent the winning team (Denver) has been saying "FU" to the whatever the line is and just getting the ML wins along with it. If i remember correctly, they covered in 3/5 in the Finals but had a winning record (vs spread) in the early rounds of the Playoffs. i try to look at the spread record of the champion team in recent years and almost always, if they don't play with the spread (meaning no consistent point shaving throughout the year) that means they mean business. (This desereves another thread to check the champion teams of old and how they fared vs the spread in their winning year)
+ The Mavs are at the bottom! Which came as a no surprise with that embarrassing end to the season. i remember betting on a couple (or five) "must win" games for them final games of the year and was confident that they'd win the game/cover the spread since they need the W. They didn't and that cost a lot of people money (including me
)+ Orlando Magic at #4! i did not expect that and maybe did not bet on many Magic games. Too bad.
+ OKC at #3 is no surprise too-- one of the better up and comers and i believe they battled hard even on road games where they are considerable or big dogs.
+ Sacramento at #6 is quite expected too. They were hyped up this year and it proved both in regular W-L record and ATS W-L record.
+ Denver, Boston and Milwaukee, with the best regular season record and having positive ATS stats is impressive too. They were on a mission both vs. the spread and getting those Ws.
+ Conversely, Detroit, Houston and San Antonio-- the tanking teams also had the worst ATS records. Eh, i thought Spurs would do better but i guess they are tanking vs the spread too.
+ Miami and Golden State at the bottom part of the list-- regular season sucked for both before playing better in the postseason. If you were one of the believers especially for the Heat, you'd come out up in $$$ and if you thought their regular season was a fluke (Heat in the Celtics series along, beat spreads of 8.5 3x and even won ML on those)
Here's the full list:
NBA Team ATS Trends - All Games, 2022-23
Team ATS Record Cover %
1 Utah 47-33-2 58.8%
2 Philadelphia 53-38-2 58.2%
3 Okla City 46-35-3 56.8%
4 Orlando 45-35-2 56.3%
5 New York 50-39-4 56.2%
6 Sacramento 49-39-1 55.7%
7 Denver 56-45-1 55.5%
8 Boston 56-46-0 54.9%
9 Milwaukee 44-37-6 54.3%
10 Indiana 42-39-1 51.9%
Cleveland 43-40-4 51.8%
LA Lakers 50-48-1 51.0%
Toronto 41-40-2 50.6%
Chicago 41-40-3 50.6%
Phoenix 46-45-2 50.6%
Brooklyn 42-42-2 50.0%
Minnesota 44-45-0 49.4%
LA Clippers 43-44-0 49.4%
Portland 40-42-0 48.8%
20 New Orleans 39-42-2 48.2%
21 Washington 37-41-4 47.4%
22 Golden State 44-50-1 46.8%
23 Charlotte 37-43-2 46.3%
24 Memphis 39-47-2 45.4%
25 Atlanta 39-49-1 44.3%
26 Miami 46-58-3 44.2%
27 Detroit 34-44-4 43.6%
28 Houston 33-45-4 42.3%
29 San Antonio 33-49-0 40.2%
30 Dallas 30-49-3 38.0%
)