Betting: Do Suns or Jazz have better value to win NBA Title?
Jared Quay, Preston Johnson & Matt Moore of the Action Network debate if the Jazz or Suns are the better wager to win the NBA Title.
Video Transcript
MATT MOORE: So these two teams are obviously really good. What's interesting is to win the NBA Championship, the Suns are plus 1,400. And the Jazz are only plus 800. So the Jazz have shorter odds, and that differential is pretty surprising to me, Preston. For the Suns to still be 14 to 1 relative to 8 to 1 is pretty wild. I think these teams--
PRESTON JOHNSON: Especially considering, yeah, going into this game the Jazz still are most likely playing the Lakers in that second round. That's tough. I'll say that in the next minute, have Jared discuss. I will look and see what my projections have this at. My guess is that the disparity should not be where you're getting nearly twice the value on Phoenix versus Utah.
So I will double check here. We know that Jared likes the Suns. But I'm guessing that both teams are going to be somewhere around 11 or 12 to 1 true price and close to equals.
MATT MOORE: Jared, is there any number where you would want the Jazz instead of the Suns if you got 20 to 1 versus 8 to 1?
JARED QUAY: Yeah, because you're doing double the number at that point, man. I put a little bit on it.
MATT MOORE: Sprinkle on it.
JARED QUAY: When you bet the features, man, you want to make sure that you can get like three or four to cover. You don't really want it to be all in on one team. And you pick the teams you don't think are going to win and then sprinkle on the rest of them.
If you don't think the favorite's going to win it all this year, you don't think it's the Lakers, Clippers, or the Nets, you can make a lot of money on the playoffs. And so I would put some on them, especially at 20 to 1. But I doubt it's that much. I think like as Preston said. They're trying to be close in the same numbers when it comes to odds for the championship.
PRESTON JOHNSON: So I have the Jazz slightly ahead for what it's worth. I think it's going to be somewhere around 9% for them, which would be around plus 1,100 true price if I recall off the top of my head. And then I have the Suns at 8.3%. So more like 8% for the Suns.
So 14 to 1 is, to be completely honest, they only need to win about 6.7% of the time at that price for it to be a profitable bet in my opinion. And so I think that's actually a worthwhile bet. And it could be that BetMGM has a certain price.
So their books can have different prices, and it's going to be dependent on their own liability of bets they've taken throughout the season. And I think Utah had that run where a lot of people started betting the Jazz, and I don't know if the public's really gotten to that point of Phoenix yet. So their price is just going to be more likely to be a good bet than the Jazz one would be.
MATT MOORE: One that I like even better, the conference odds are the Suns plus 700. So then you don't have to worry about the Nets. You don't have to worry about potentially the Sixers. You're still getting 7 to 1.
The biggest thing here is though is like these models' numbers are built off of regular season performance. And we just know that the playoffs are so entirely different than the regular season. And it's easy to, I think, kind of change that value for a team like, Kaminsky, for a team like the Lakers, right? Because it's just like, OK, well, they've got LeBron, and they're the returning champs. And all the factors that make the Lakers the Lakers from that perspective.
But like, the Suns' profile for playoff success it's just a lot better than Utah's. And that's not any sort of knock on Utah. If it's about style of play. Like, that's the biggest thing is like the Suns that are fine to switch everything. They can play zone. They'll put pressure on the ball. They'll take mid-range jumpers, all of these types of things, and the Jazz really are built on protect the rim, try and keep your 3-point attempts down.