What We Learned as NBA Bettors in the First Week of the 2021-2022 Season

Tuesday marks the one week mark of the NBA season, and we have some takeaways from a betting perspective.

Who is over-performing relative to the betting market? Which Finals contender is falling way short of expectations through the first handful of games? How have underdogs done so far? We have all that below!

Betting Underdogs Is Not Working

Backing underdogs has not gone well for bettors thus far. Dogs are 19-30 against the spread this season, a pitiful 38.7%, and it gets even worse for a typically trendy play, home underdogs. Home dogs are 4-14 against the number to start the year.

While some positive regression to the mean is in order, the gap between the good and the bad teams is apparent early.

Home Court Advantage?

After playing most of last season in front of no crowds, or a limited one, stadiums are open for the 2020-2021 season. However, home teams have struggled to cash tickets against the spread, going just 20-29 to start.

Further, home teams are just 24-25 straight up thus far. Is home court advantage becoming less and less of a factor? The early indication is yes, and you may want to adjust your betting strategy.

Slow Starts on Offense

Under's are 29-20 to start the season. When trying to breakdown what this might be, my most logical explanation is that teams are still feeling one another out and some tired legs are effecting scoring outputs.

I expect this number to meet in the middle as books adjust accordingly. Scoring typical picks up as the season progresses and teams find their footing and rotations.

Don't get too comfortable backing unders in the modern NBA despite the hot trend.

Undefeated ATS Teams, Winless ATS Teams

Two teams that have jumped out to impressive starts, the Bulls and Grizzlies, have covered in each game this season. Chicago is 4-0 on the year, but have not played a team over .500 yet, while Memphis is 2-1 with a tough one point loss to the Lakers on Sunday, but have come out of the gate strong.

Lastly, and impressively, the Jazz are 2-0 against the spread this season. Despite finishing the year with the best record in the NBA last season, the Jazz have hit the ground running. The team did beat two non-playoff teams to start, but there seems to be no hangover from last season's dominant regular season.

As for the underperforming teams, winless against the spread, two make sense and the other is eye opening.

The Pistons and Thunder are both 0-3 ATS, two of the worst teams in the league, so the market is still searching for a floor for these two teams. The Thunder have looked particularly bad, losing relative to the spread -- so margin of loss on top of the spread -- by more than 13 points on average through three games.

The last team is the Los Angeles Lakers, who are also 0-3 ATS (1-2 SU). The Lakers are still figuring out their rotations and how to fit Russell Westbrook into their game plan around LeBron James and Anthony Davis, who both look strong early on.