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5 NBA trends every bettor should know after 1st month of season

Adam Pantozzi / National Basketball Association / Getty

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A month into the NBA season, we've experienced plenty of the usual small sample size surprises that you'd expect after just five weeks. Still, some trends are so alarming that they're worth investigating. Thankfully, that's what we're here for.

Here are five trends you should know after the first month of the NBA season:

Fade home teams without fans

This isn't a groundbreaking discovery, as many wondered before the season whether the lack of fans would impact home teams' success rate. Through five weeks, the answer has been a resounding "yes."

Entering Friday's games, home teams have gone 122-115 straight up (51.5%) and 106-127-4 against the spread (45.5%). If stretched across a full season, both would easily be the worst marks since 1995, the first year of available NBA betting info in our database.

This isn't a case of variance within a small sample size, either. If you only look at the first 16 games of each campaign since 1995 - the average NBA team has played roughly 16 games this season - home teams still won at least 53.4% of their contests in each of those prior campaigns with a cumulative 59.6% win percentage. This year's ATS mark is also the worst through 16 games since 2015-16 and the fifth-worst in the last 25 seasons.

That's come despite a massive adjustment from oddsmakers to account for the lack of fans. Since 1995, the average home team has been favored by 3.1 points, and that number has been at least 2.2 in each of the last 25 campaigns. This year, home teams are giving just 1.6 points on average.

Despite that, home teams still find themselves falling short of the spread by 1.11 points per game, which ranks second-worst in the available data set early in the season. They're also outscoring their opponents by just 0.51 points per game outright, easily the worst margin in recent history.

All aboard the underdog train

Underdogs have been a risky bet in recent years, hitting below 50% in each of the last six seasons. Those rates have been better early in the campaign, but they still pale in comparison to what we've seen through the first five weeks of this season.

So far, underdogs are 121-109-4 ATS (52.6%), which is the highest ATS success rate at this point since 2015-16 and tied for the fifth-best mark of the century. That comes despite underdogs catching just 5.4 points on average, a full 0.8 points fewer than the average line in the last few decades.

It's even more eye-opening for moneyline bettors, as underdogs are winning 38% of games outright. That's the best mark at this point in the campaign in the available data set and would be well above the best season-long mark of 32.9%, which was set in 2001-02.

Predictably, road underdogs are performing the best of all. They're covering 56% of the time - second-best through 16 games - with a 39.2% win percentage, which is also the highest rate of any early-season slice.

Big favorites cashing at historic rate

So, you're ready to fade favorites of every kind, right? Well, not exactly. While favorites have been giving fewer points and covering at a worse rate, the top-tier teams are running up the score in a way we haven't seen before.

This season, teams giving 10 or more points are a resounding 17-6-2 ATS (73.9%) with a 24-1 record SU. The former is easily the best ATS start we've seen in the last 25 years, while the latter is bested only by a 19-0 SU start from heavy favorites in 2000.

What's the reason for the early success? It's hard to say, but for whatever reason, the entire betting market has undervalued heavy favorites in recent years. Since 2018, double-digit favorites are covering 56.9% of the time in the NBA and 64.3% of the time in the NFL, while MLB favorites of -200 or more are 58.4% on the run line.

Don't sleep on unrested teams

For years, fading teams on the second night of a back-to-back has been a go-to situational play for NBA bettors. Clubs in that spot have covered less than 50% of the time in 18 of the last 25 years, including in each of the past two seasons.

This time, it's been the opposite - teams on zero nights' rest are 40-34-1 ATS (54.1%), which would easily be the best mark across a full season. Their 46.7% record SU would also rank as the second-highest in a full campaign.

That shouldn't be a surprise given what we've seen in recent years. While teams with no rest have struggled across the full season, they've done well through a campaign's first 16 games, covering better than 50% of the time in 14 of the last 19 seasons and seven of the last nine.

There isn't much rhyme or reason as to which teams are succeeding with no rest, either. Of the seven clubs currently undefeated on the second night of a back-to-back, six made the playoffs a year ago - but so did four of the six teams winless in this spot. The lesson here might be to ride the value early but fade tired teams as the season progresses.

Under hitting on all-time high totals

For the sixth consecutive campaign, betting totals are on pace to set a record high. Despite that trend - or perhaps because of it - the under has been hitting at a historic rate.

We uncovered this phenomenon a year ago when unders were on track for a record success rate before normalizing late in the season. Will we see a similar story this year? So far, the under has hit 52.2% of the time, which would be the second-best mark over the last 25 years across a full season. Games are also going under by 0.6 points on average, more than in any season during that stretch.

Additionally, the lowest totals have been cashing under at an inordinate rate. Games with a total below 220 have gone 51-29-3 (63.8%) to the under, while those with a total below 215 are a ridiculous 18-5 (78.3%) to the under.

Again, caution is necessary this early in the season, but it's still worth exploring the reasons why. The overall offensive rating is down from the last two seasons after rising every year since 2011-12, and while 3-point shooting volume and efficiency are up, shooting is down across the board.

The biggest culprit may be a lack of physicality. The league's collective free-throw rate (19.2%) is currently the lowest since the ABA-NBA merger in 1976, and teams are converting just 76.5% of their foul shots, the lowest mark since 2015-16. Officials aren't necessarily to blame - they've called 40.3 personal fouls per game, which is mostly on par with the last few years.

Sure enough, the teams allowing the fewest free throws per game tend to be the biggest beneficiaries of the under bump. The top 10 teams in free throws allowed have gone 88-70-4 (55.7%) to the under, with seven of those 10 boasting a record better than 50% to the under.

C Jackson Cowart is a betting writer for theScore. He's an award-winning journalist with stops at The Charlotte Observer, The San Diego Union-Tribune, The Times Herald-Record, and BetChicago. He's also a proud graduate of UNC-Chapel Hill, and his love of sweet tea is rivaled only by that of a juicy prop bet. Find him on Twitter @CJacksonCowart.

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