The Show Goes On …

Championship Sunday Guilloteenie Contests are LIVE.

What else is in today’s newsletter?

• Watercooler: Scared Money w/ cooterdoodle is back!

• NFL Conference Championships: Chiefs line on the move?

• NBA MVP: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander takes over as favorite

The latest analysis and insights from our merry band of sports betting nerds:

 🧨 Three QBs in the first three picks? Bold move Cotton, er, Freedman. Newest NFL Mock Draft is here.

 🛒 Prop ‘til you drop. Geoff Ulrich has a host of props to consider for the Conference Championships.

📈 Zach Ertz revenge game? Kareem Hunt to find the paint? Freedman, Ulrich, and cooterdoodle break down their favorite props for the Conference Championships.

👻 To quote YG—scared money don’t make no money. Cooterdoodle is back with her Scared Money bets.

📈 The NFL Draft is right around the corner. Thor Nystrom and Kendall Valenzuela break down what to look for at the Senior Bowl.

💰 Big bets inbound. At least one bettor is expecting a bunch of points in the AFC Championship.

NFL Conference Championships Market Analysis

by Matt LaMarca

Washington Commanders at Philadelphia Eagles:

• Spread: Eagles -6.0

• Total: O/U 47.5

Philadelphia has a reputation for being … not exactly the nicest sports city. Add in the fact that the public has seemingly fallen in love with Jayden Daniels, and it’s not a huge surprise that the Commanders are the more popular side. They’ve received nearly 70% of the spread bets in this contest, and that doesn’t figure to change much as we get closer to kickoff.

That said, the sharps don’t bet with their hearts. Some would say they don’t even have hearts. They’re cold, robotic, emotionless machines, and they’ll take value wherever they can find it.

There has been some sharp money tracked on the Eagles in this spot, and that jives with how I see this game playing out. Even if the Commanders might have a slight quarterback advantage, the Eagles have a far superior team. Specifically, the gap between the two defenses is wide, and the Eagles should do a better job of slowing down Daniels than the Commanders will do against Jalen Hurts and Saquon Barkley.

That has caused this number to steadily move in the Eagles’ favor throughout the week. This line actually opened at Eagles -4.5, but reached -5.5 pretty quickly on Monday. By the time Tuesday afternoon rolled around, this line was all the way at -6.0. We haven’t seen much further movement from there, but FanDuel still has this number at -6.5 Philly (-102).

The movement hasn’t been quite as drastic with the total, with the number sitting at 47.5 basically all week.

If you’re looking for some trends to support the Eagles, there are plenty of those as well. As impressive as Daniels has been, he’s still a rookie quarterback playing in the biggest game of his career. Only five other rookies have ever made it to the conference championship, and those players are 0-5 straight up with 4 touchdowns and 9 interceptions. Daniels might just be an outlier—he certainly looked the part last week—but history is not on his side.

This will also be the Commanders’ fourth consecutive road game, and those teams have historically not fared well in the playoffs. They’re just the eighth team since 2000 to play a playoff game on the fourth leg of a road trip (or later), and those previous squads were 0-7 straight up and 1-5-1 ATS in those outings.

If all that wasn’t tough enough, Hurts has historically been a machine at home and in divisional contests. The Commanders have had a much better season than expected, but it feels like the storybook journey ends here.

Buffalo Bills at Kansas City Chiefs:

• Spread: Chiefs -2.0

• Total: O/U 48.5

It feels like Josh Allen vs. Patrick Mahomes is the Peyton Manning vs. Tom Brady for a new generation. Unfortunately, it’s pretty easy to identify which quarterback is which in that comparison. While Allen might be 4-1 vs. Mahomes in the regular season, Mahomes is the guy who has come out on top in the playoffs. He’s won each of their head-to-head matchups, and he’ll be looking to pick up his fourth Super Bowl ring in just his seventh year as a starter.

Like in the NFC Championship, the underdog is the team getting the public support. Maybe the public thinks the Chiefs are overrated, or maybe they’re just tired of seeing Kansas City in the Super Bowl and ready for a change. Regardless, more than 80% of the bets have been placed on the Bills.

That feels absolutely crazy to me. The Chiefs are an unquestioned dynasty at this point, yet 80% of people are actively betting against them. Make that make sense.

Despite the public loading up on the Bills, this line has started to move in the opposite direction. The Chiefs have spent most of the week at -1.5, but they’re up to -2.0 across most of the industry. There has even been a -2.5 pop on DraftKings, so the market is moving against the majority of the bets. That’s a strong indicator that the professional action is siding with Mahomes and Co. It’s just another reason to love the Chiefs this week.

If you need more convincing, how about this stat: Mahomes is now 20-7-1 for his career as an underdog or favorite of less than 3 points. That includes a perfect 7-0 mark during the postseason.

The Chiefs will also have the benefit of an extra day of rest in this spot after playing on Saturday last week. The extra rest has historically worked out well in the postseason. Teams with a rest advantage are 26-16 in the NFL Conference Championships dating back to the 2003-04 season, including a 20-7 mark when playing at home.

Maybe this is the year the Bills finally get over the hump, but I’m going to need to see it to believe it. The Chiefs winning the AFC is starting to feel like Thanos: Inevitable.

NBA Futures: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander vs. Nikola Jokic

• by Matt LaMarca

We’re more than halfway through the NBA regular season, and we’re starting to get a bit of separation in the MVP market. Two players have emerged as clear favorites: Shai Gilgeous-Alexander and Nikola Jokic. No other player is listed inside +10000, so it feels very much like a two-horse race.

Gilgeous-Alexander is coming off a 54-point game vs. the Jazz on Wednesday, which has caused him to take over as a pretty sizable favorite. He’s up to -500 across the industry, while Jokic is available at +350.

I understand wanting to reward the Thunder for their season. They’ve been incredible this year, putting together the best record in a tough Western Conference in impressive fashion. They currently have a Net Rating of +12.3, which would be the second-best mark since at least 1970. Only the 1995-96 Bulls were better (+13.4), and they won a then-record 72 games en route to a championship.

That being said … has SGA really had a better year than Jokic? It’s hard for me to say that. Gilgeous-Alexander leads the league in scoring, but Jokic grades out as the better player in basically every other category. That includes the traditional metrics, and it also includes the advanced metrics like Win Shares, Box Plus/Minus, and Value Over Replacement Player (VORP).

Advanced metrics haven’t caught on in the NBA the same way that they have in baseball, but Jokic’s traditional statistics are also absurd. He’s averaging 30.2 points, 13.4 rebounds, and 10.1 assists per game. Only two other players have ever averaged 30-10-10 in a single season: Oscar Robertson and Russell Westbrook. In case you’re not familiar with your NBA history, those are point guards. Jokic racking up the type of assist numbers he does as a center makes him a true 1-of-1.

Ultimately, it feels like Gilgeous-Alexander’s candidacy is based mostly on two factors:

1. The Thunder are better than the Nuggets

2. Jokic has already won three MVPs

As far as Jokic’s previous achievements, I think we’ve reached an era where “voter fatigue” has been minimized. We’re seeing that play out in the NFL currently, with Lamar Jackson expected to take home his third MVP award instead of Josh Allen winning his first.

The first concern is significantly larger, but these types of things can change. If the Thunder come back to reality just a bit down the stretch, it’s going to be a lot harder to look past Jokic’s superior statistics. Even if the Thunder are the best team in the West but don’t reach historic levels, it’s tough to make the case for SGA over Jokic. He’s doing more with less on a nightly basis, and his greatness is truly something that needs to be marveled on a nightly basis. You never know what you’re going to see next.

Ultimately, I’ll take the value with Jokic at anything better than +300. Maybe SGA will get across the finish line, but -500 translates to an implied probability of 83.33%. That’s simply too much with roughly half a season still left to be played.

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