Killer Sports NBA Annual Packed With Thousands of Hoops Trends, Angles

11 November 2003

By Howard Schwartz

Anyone looking for betting trends and angles in pro basketball will have a well-stocked gold mine of them in the 2003 Killer Sports NBA Annual (181 pages, 8x11 plastic spiralbound, $24.95). Published by MTi Sports Forecasting, this new arrival at Gambler's Book Shop (Gambler's Book Club) contains many in-depth angles with rationale and statistics to back them up.

Some angles examine the entire league, others, specific teams. Some angles are rare, others more common. For example, "The league is 0-l3 against the spread since Feb. 3, 2000 on the road when the line is within 3 of pick after a game in which they had the ball stolen at least 15 times as long as the over-under line is greater than 176." Also: "The league is 10-0 against the spread since March, 1996 as an away favorite of more than five points off a win in which they attempted at least 20 more shots than their opponent and they have fewer than two days rest."

The book contains some valuable past history like three years of NBA Playoff results with spreads, score, totals, date game played, opponent, whether home or away; also some of the hottest angles which clicked last season.

But the heart of the book begins on page 66 with each team in alphabetical order. Let's take Atlanta Hawks. You get the top against-the- spread trends (40 of them); followed by over-under trends (40 of them also); the last three years of NBA spreads of totals (regular season only for ATS and totals) and you'll easily be able to see how much past the spread they went or missed by and the same goes for the Totals.

Two helpful magazines for backgrounding the college basketball season have arrived. They are Street & Smith's College Basketball (192 pages, magazine, $6.99) and the Sporting News College Basketball (160 pages, magazine $6.98).

The Street & Smith issue contains schedules for most major teams and analyzes them (the teams); lists college regular season and post-season tournaments with dates and places; has a small section on small colleges; looks at all-conference teams and does predict the top 25 major college powers. The issue contains rosters, coach and arena information, plus phone numbers if you plan to buy tickets to a game; then rates teams by quality of starters; bench; coach and recruits.

The Sporting News magazine also contains schedules; tournament information; predictions for each conference; rosters; key personnel losses; what team web sites are; and conference, team analysis.

The Blue Ribbon College Basketball book is now available at Gamblers Book Shop as well. This informative and much-requested publication arrived minutes before press time.