NBA Playoffs Round 2

In your friendly, non-profit NBA playoff pools, stick with overdogs and give the points in all round 2 match-ups until I see a value “underdog”.

Atlanta might eventually get enough points against King James to warrant selection as a “value” underdog, but hold off for now.

After round 1 and 1 game from round 2, I am 24-22 or 52% against the points. There has been no trend at all so far. All-road, all-homer, all-underdog and all-overdog strategies are all 50/50 so far.

Last year, I rode my same system to a 55.8% record in the 2008 NBA playoffs and over two years of picking NCAA March madness matches I did better still at 55.9%.

The statistically significant part of what I modestly call my Gipp-Gibbs system – backing all “heavy” underdogs receiving 12.5 or more points (the Gibbs part of the Gipp-Gibbs system) – came in with 54.7% winners over the 2008/9 NBA regular season.

Let’s see where I am when this year’s playoffs are complete.

Jarhead’s Baseball Update

This comment is courtesy of Godiva toy boy Archibald’s buddy Jarhead.

Are my hometown Toronto Blue Jays, St. Louis Cardinals, LA Dodgers, Seattle Mariners and Florida Marlins really as good as their records look?

BJays, St. Louis and Dodgers have benefited from some good luck, but have been the best teams in their divisions. BJays may not be able to keep it up, but so far, so good and so much better than expected.

Seattle and Florida are sub-.500 teams that will sink back to their true levels.

Tampa Bay has been plagued by a run of bad luck and will challenge for 1st just by maintaining the same level of play.

Who’s the best team in New York? The Mets are the best team in the NL East, while the Yankees are lucky to be over .500.

Of course, the American League (AL) has been so much better than the National League (NL) over the past several years that a .500 AL team might be better than a 1st place NL team. Stay tuned for that story when inter-league games begin.