Watching the NBA is like watching a movie.

When Michael Jordan was in the game, it was like watching a movie where Robert De Niro is the lead. De Niro has been a part of some big movies, but he also can draw you in for smaller movies, such as Hide and Seek.

Jordan on the Bulls is like De Niro in The Godfather, yet his time with the Wizards equates to De Niro in Hide and Seek.  While the Wizards and Hide and Seek don’t appeal to the average fan, add Jordan and De Niro and now you have an audience.

When it comes to the NBA, I am a part of that audience.  I watched the NBA with a casual interest when they had the Dream Team in 1992, and when Jordan, Rodman, and Pippen were with the Bulls.  Then the NBA turned to the Allen Iverson type players who put up 40-50 points a night, and were praised as stars, even though they never helped their team win.  That didn’t really keep my interest.

Recently the NBA has put out a few stars like Steve Nash, Dwayne Wade, and LeBron James, who are actually likeable stars.  These guys have brought my interest back, to the point where I actually have a fantasy basketball team, taking LeBron with the 5th pick, and Wade in the second round.  To create some more interest in the game I have also been tracking some wagering strategies.  In the process I have found an excellent system with Accuscore data that has won 65% of the time thus far.

During the MLB season I had a lot of success betting Accuscore picks that had side value.  I decided to start tracking the NBA teams who had side value on the moneyline, with the theory that these picks would be stronger with the points I was given for underdogs.  I barely have enough time to post my football picks to my blog each week, so there is no way I would be able to post daily NBA picks.  Therefore, allow me to share this system with you all.

STEP ONE:  CALCULATING THE SIDE VALUE

The following formula can be used to calculate the side value of the moneyline.  “Side value” basically means that Accuscore is giving a certain team a bigger winning percentage than Vegas is.  The following shows how we find the Vegas percentages:

If the Accuscore simulation win percentage is greater than the Vegas win percentage given in step two, then the team has side value.  In this particular game, Cleveland is winning Accuscore simulations 38.1% of the time, giving them the side value pick.

STEP TWO:  WEEDING OUT THE BAD PICKS

The next step is to take the teams that have side value with the points they are given, thus improving the odds of that team even more.  I have noticed that on any given night, the majority of underdogs can have an Accuscore side value.  Not all of these teams are covering the spread in Accuscore simulations.  In the above situation, Cleveland is covering their +7 spread 54.3% of the time.

If you take the picks that have an Accuscore side value, and are covering the spread in Accuscore simulations, you will get the best results.  The picks that I have tracked so far this season that meet these two criteria have covered 65.5% of the time, for a total of 7.29 units won.  The picks that weren’t covering the Accuscore spread were only winning 43.8% of the time.

I have been tracking this method for 10 days, and have won eight out of ten days, going 0-1 on one day, and 1-1 on another day.  As usual, money management is the key to the success of this method.  There are no gambling methods that win every night.  All it would take is doubling your units wagered on an unfortunate 0-3 night to wipe out 10 days of success.  The good part about this system is that it takes five minutes to calculate the picks, and it generates 3-4 picks a night on average. The best part is that you can win betting the NBA, even if you have very little knowledge of the sport.